Vicente Sotto

Vicente Yap Sotto, also known as Nyor Inting (1877-1950) was a former senator of the Philippines, and considered as one of the greatest Cebuanos of the 20th century. He was a man of protean accomplishments:"father of modern Cebuano culture",prolific writer and publisher,pioneering labor leader,renowned lawyer,and quintessential principled politician.

His principal achievement lies in two areas: (1) law, politics, and government; and (2) culture and letters.

Senator Vicente Yap Sotto is considered one of the Unsung Heroes of the Philippines. WikiPilipinas refers to Senator Vicente Sotto as one of the so-called “Forgotten” People in Philippine history – people who, unfortunately, were not given much attention in traditional studies and mainstream histories, but are equally heroic in their own simple yet significant ways. They are the peripherally discussed or rarely mentioned people who have nonetheless distinguished themselves for their heroic deeds and martyrdoms. They have often worked behind “prominent” heroes but have done dangerous and complicated tasks which made many battles and revolts possible if not successful.

He was called the "most militant and aggressive" of the Filipino advocates of complete and immediate independence in the first decades of the 20th century.His contemporaries called him the "Great Dissenter",an archetypal political oppositionist who fought for his convictions with little regard of the cost.A fighter of lost causes and "defender of the poor and oppressed", he was one of the most active and best-known criminal lawyers of his time.The acknowledged "Father " of Cebuano journalism,literature and language,Sotto was one of the leading Filipino intellectuals of the early twentieth century.

He was elected councilor,mayor,congressman,Constitutional Convention delegate and senator.Exiled abroad for seven years,disbarred on two occasions and imprisoned five times,few public figures led a more colorful life.

All of these do not quite sum up the totality,or the historical particularity of VICENTE SOTTO(1877-1950).(from the book "Vicente Sotto,The Maverick Senator" by Resil B.Mojares,winner of five Philippine National Book awards).

Brief Biography

Senator Vicente Sotto was born in Cebu City on April 18, 1877 to Marcelino Sotto and Pascuala Yap.

He finished his secondary education at the Colegio de San Carlos in Cebu City. He obtained the degree of Bachelor of Laws and Judicial Science and passed the bar examinations in 1907.

In 1902, Senator Sotto entered politics when he ran for the municipal councilorship of Cebu and won. In 1907, he was elected mayor despite his absence during the election owing to his involvement in a court battle caused by a kidnapping suit lodge against him by his opponent, and was forced to stay in Hongkong. After seven years in the Crown Colony, Senator Sotto decided to return to the country in 1914.

In 1922, he was elected representative of the second district of Cebu until 1925. On November 1946, he ran for Senator and won and served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance until 1950.

When he died at the age of 73,his colleagues in the Philippine Senate remembered Senator Vicente Sotto as the recalcitrant,principled Sotto:"The man was like a citadel,impregnable to political whims because strong beliefs formed the bedrock of his whole being(Senator Quintin Paredes);"a great soldier of democracy and liberal thought"(Senator Tomas Confessor),"His soul of steel never knew the word'surrender'(President Carlos Garcia).Senator Lorenzo M.Tanada tersely said "We have lost a fighter"

Law and government

Sotto was a pioneering labor leader, human rights advocate, and criminal lawyer. He also served twice as the Philippine delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. He was elected as a councilor of the City of Cebu and afterwards its mayor. He was elected senator of the Republic from 1946 to 1950, when he authored the Sotto Law.

Sen. Vicente Sotto, a militant newspaperman himself in his younger days, filed a bill forbidding newspapermen to disclose their news sources unless it was “in the interest of the state.”The Sotto law (Republic Act No. 53 (as amended)) protects journalists from being compelled to name their news source". The law protects “The publisher, editor, columnist or duly accredited reporter of any newspaper, magazine or periodical of general circulation.”

Culture

Before the end of the 19th century, writing shifted from Spanish to Tagalog. The authors focused on everyday life in the Philippines as they were addressing a new audience - the Filipino masses.

The more notable essayists and fictionists were Claro M. Recto, Teodoro M. Kalaw, Epifanio de los Reyes, Vicente Sotto, Trinidad Pardo de Tavera, Rafael Palma, Enrique Laygo (Caretas or Masks, 1925) and Balmori who mastered the prosa romantica or romantic prose.

'Sotto is regarded as the Father of Cebuano Language and Letters'. When he was only 22 years old (about 1899), he put up La Justicia, the first newspaper in Cebu published by a Philippine citizen, in which he defended the issue of Philippine independence. It was suspended on orders by the American military governor. In the week following, the undaunted Sotto begun publishing El Nacional. This was also ordered closed and Sotto was imprisoned at Fort San Pedro for two months and six days. After this experience, he begun using the pen name Taga Kotta (of the fort, or resident of the fort). He was found guilty of treason as a member of a committee of rebels along with those in Manila and Hong Kong. When he was freed in 1900, he published Ang Suga (The Light), which was first issued on June 16, 1901. He was forced to flee to Hong Kong in 1907. There he organized in 1911 the English-Spanish fortnightly The Philippine Republic. Its publication was stopped a year later and its editor was arrested. Sotto's extradition was requested three times by the American government but every time it was denied by the British courts. The Philippine Republic resumed publication after a month of suspension.

In the urban centers most particularly Manila and Cebu, journalists like Aurelio Tolentino, Juan Matapang Cruz, Juan Abad, Vicente Sotto and many others continued to write in symbolisms, some of which were so blatant that a number of their writings were judged as seditious.

In 1915, Sotto returned to Manila and begun work on a weekly journal he named The Independent. He issued a special edition of this journal in Paris in 1929. The news item prompted an American senator to introduce a resolution in the United States Senate to grant immediate independence to the Philippines. The resolution was defeated by eight votes.

Journalism

The first newspaper in Cebu that came out in 1899 was the La Justicia of Vicente Sotto and a partner, Matias de Arrieta. At the time of its birth, Cebu was experiencing a fast changing environment. The Americans had already started a measure of censorship.

De Arrieta was not quite well known in the Cebu community, so that it is possible he came in as partner-investor in such a high-risk venture that was made even riskier with Sotto's nationalism The Spanish weekly was "born" at a time when the Filipinos were caught in a cross current of international politics. It was not known then that the United States' military strategists had coveted a place in the Orient that would give the US a tactical advantage in the sea lanes of Asia. And the Philippines fitted the bill of particulars. The "purchase" of the Philippines from Spain was said to be actually a fulfillment of such strategic need.

It was thus understandable why at the outset of US occupation of the Philippines, the Americans immediately set out to tighten its hold of the archipelago. The La Justicia was styled by the publishers as the first Filipino newspaper published in Cebu, which indeed, it was. Its immediate predecessor, the El Boletin, was Spanish-owned and was "like all Spanish periodicals of the time, devoted to the promotion of Spanish colonial aims…"

It was said the Spanish weekly was accepted for printing in the Vincentians' Imprenta de S. Carlos, but only after Sotto agreed that he would never attack the church in its pages. Sotto, it seems, was already well known for his anti-church stance as well as his abrasive ways as a journalist and as a politician. It was probably for this reason, too, that the La Justicia was short-lived. The American military authorities suspended it forthwith.

But Don Vicente Sotto, irrepressible a person that he was, did not wait long to come up with another Spanish weekly, the El Nacional. But like the La Justicia, it was also soon suspended after its first appearance. Then on top of being identified as a nationalist, he was suspected of being an intelligence agent of the revolutionary committee in Manila, and that earned him a two-month incarceration at Fort San Pedro.

The following year, the last one of the 19th century, El Pueblo appeared also as a Spanish weekly, and was soon enough earning for its publisher/editor a reported 54 cases for libel and sedition. Finally, his political enemies succeeded in "exiling" him to Hongkong for an abduction case.

However, what could be considered then as most significant in the mass media history of Cebu was the appearance in 1901 of the Ang Suga, the first newspaper published in vernacular Cebuano. "A tri-weekly, sold at five centavos a copy, it carried a Spanish section and, as early as 1907, started printing English reports." It was in this tri-weekly's pages that the early Cebuano creative writers saw their work in print.

Cebuano Plays

In 1902, a young man named Vicente Sotto attacked the decadent forms of linambay in his newspaper Ang Suga. He was challenged by a friend to write his own play as he was always attacking the linambay form. Sotto wrote the Cebuano "Ang Paghigugma sa Yutang Nataohan" (Love of the Native Land) as a response. The play was successful; Sotto organized the Compania de Aficianados Filipinos. Within the year, two more plays were written by Sotto: Elena, which deals of a girl's love for an insurrecto; and Aurora, which deals with a scandal involving the priests and nuns of the Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion. Realism in Cebuano theater was stretched too much however; even Sotto himself was a victim of the movement he started, when prior to his running for mayor in 1907, a play entitled "Ang Taban" (1906, by Teodulfo V. Ylaya) was released. The play dealt with a kidnap allegation involving Sotto.

Tributes

"Vicente Sotto was a rock of Gibraltar in character because of the ruggedness of his conviction, the indomitability of his soul, the sublimity of his courage, and the depth of his faith in the ultimate triumph of justice. His knees no bending, his pen signed no retraction, his march saw no retreat, and his soul of steel knowns no surrender. He marshaled his efforts and used his influence to secure and safeguard for the press the fullest measure of freedom. By his death the country has lost a great patriot, his family has lost a loving and devote father, the Senate has lost an illustrious member..." - Carlos P. Garcia, 8th President of the Philippines

Republic Act 7528 was approved on May 21, 1992, renaming a a well known Philippine government hospital in Cebu City as the " Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center" in honor of Senator Vicente Sotto of Cebu.

Contributions to Cebuano Language and Literature

Senator Vicente Sotto is best known for his achievements as nationalistic journalist,but he is equally famous as a creative writer. His play "Pahigugma sa Yutang Natawhan"(Love of Native Land),dramatized the Cebuano people's heroic struggle against Spanish feudal rule in the modern realist mode. (Source: http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about_cultarts/cultprofile/history/tilamsik%20indesign02.pdf)

The evolution of the Wikang Pambansa, now known as Filipino, has not remained uneventful, as one finds out from the its historical perspective.From 1935 onwards, to the present 1990s we have seen this language develop, first as Tagalog-based that barely ill-disguised itself as the "national language"--a clear victory of Manuel L. Quezon and the espousal of the Tagalistas over the Bisayan hopes of Vicente Sotto and his Ang Suga advocates-- then, in 1959 acquiring the term "Pilipino"given to it by executive fiat to remove the last vestiges of "tagalogism" and imprint its national character.

Books on Senator Vicente Y.Sotto

1)"Vicente Sotto,The Maverick Senator" by Resil B.Mojares(winner of five Philippine National Book awards)Cebuano Studies center(1992)

2)Labindalawang Kuwento Ni Vicente Sotto Category Literature

Publisher Sentro ng Wikang Filipino Author Salin ni Remedios B. Ramos; pinamatnugutan ni Erlinda K. Alburo P Mga piling maikling kuwento sa orihinal na tekstong Sebuano na isinalin sa Filipino. Makapagbibigay ang libro ng kongkretong bidensiya ng ambag ni Sotto sa kilusang makabayan at magbibigay ng linaw sa ugnayan ng kultura at kasaysayan sa isang mahalagang rehiyon ng bansa.

3)Ramas, Wilhelmina Q. Elements of Sugbuanon Theatre. Volume III: Four Plays Representing Vicente Sotto’s Elena, Antonio Abad’s Magda, Vicente Alcoseba’s Paz, Buenaventura Rodriguez’s Lili.

4)'Dulaang Cebuano' translated by Don Pagusara(Ateneo De Manila University Press) Collected and translated into English by Resil Mojares and Erlinda Alburo.

Includes the plays "Ang Asawa ng Sugarol" (by Ismael Paras), "Rajah Hamabar" (by Junne Cañizares), "Ang Peke" (by Buenaventura Rodriguez), and "Ang Pag-ibig sa Lupang Sinilangan" (by Vicente Sotto).Winner of National Book Award, as part of the Panitikan Series.

5)The Bibliography of Cebuano Linguistics : with an essay on Vicente Sotto and the development of Cebuano ME: Personal Author Mojares, Resil B. Publication Cebu City: University of San Carlos, 1977

5)The "Nation" in Vicente Sotto's Literary Imagination:a Study of Thirteen Cebuano stories by Rosario Cruz-Lucero.(The Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society).

6)"Life's Lessons From My Maverick Lolo" by Ernesto P.Sotto ( compilation of Senator Vicente Sotto's ideas and achievements Wikipedia )