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Vicente Sotto was born in Cebu City in 1881 to Manileño parents, Sotto is remembered as the “Father of CebuanoLanguage and Letters,” and for his vigilant stance on Philippine independence. In 1899, he (aged 22) and hisbrother, Filemon Sotto, published the newspapers La Justicia and El Nacional, which criticized American occupationof the Philippines.

Both publications were ordered suspended and he was imprisoned in Fort San Pedro. Thus, his pen name“TagaKotta” which means “resident of the fort.” In 1901, the maiden issue of his newspaper Ang Suga (The Light) which

contained “Maming,” the first published Cebuano short story, came out.

Sotto was elected mayor of Cebu in 1907 but fled to avoid facing a kidnapping suit. He returned in 1914 and beganpublishing The Independent in Manila the following year. A special edition of the journal was released in Paris in1929. Its contents prodded an American senator to file a resolution to grant the Philippines immediate independence.

Vicente Sotto served as representative of the second district of Cebu from 1922 to 1925. He was elected to the

Senate after World War II.

Sources: got it from a recent "Mga Bayani sa Sugbu" Exhibit from the CASA GORORDO MUSEUM, CEBU.

Vicente Yap Sotto,( Author of  The Sotto Law,The Press Freedom Law,RA 53) (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 Literature",prolific writer and

publisher,pioneering labor leader,renowned lawyer and quintessential principledpolitician.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Sotto#References  

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.

(http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Unsung_Heroes) 

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.

Sotto was born in Cebu City on April 18, 1877 to Marcelino Sotto and Pascuala Yap. He finished hissecondary education at the University of San Carlos (formerly Colegio de San Carlos), Cebu City. Heobtained 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 council[1]

 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  Hong Kong. Sotto returned 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. He

served in the Senate until 1950.

When he died at the age of 73, his colleagues in the Senate remembered him as "recalcitrant, principled

Sotto."

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Sotto was the main author of the Press Freedom Law (now known as the Sotto Law,  Republic Act No. 53)

enacted in 1946. The Sotto Law protects journalists from being compelled to name their news sources.[2]

 

In 1899 (then just 22 years old), 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 began

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 organized in Hong Kong 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 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.

[edit]To Cebuano culture

Sotto is regarded as the Father of  Cebuano Language and Letters.

Sotto's play "Paghigugma sa Yutang Natawhan" (Love of Native Land), dramatized the Cebuano people's

heroic struggle against Spanish feudal rule in the modern realist mode. He also wrote the first published

Cebuano short story ("Maming", in the maiden issue of Ang Suga).

He wrote, directed, and produced the first Cebuano play,  Elena, a play in three acts. It was first performed

at the Teatro Junquera on May 18, 1902. The play established Sotto's reputation as a playwright.

The dedication of the play by the playwright reads, "To My Motherland, that you may have remembrance

of the glorious Revolution that redeemed you from enslavement. I dedicate this humble play to you."

[edit]Tributes to Sotto

Carlos P. Garcia, 8th President of the Philippines, a native of Bohol and fellow Visayan, said of Sotto:

"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..."

Southern Islands Hospital, the primary public medical care facility in southern Philippines, was renamed

on May 21, 1992 to Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center , in honor of the late senator .[3]

  A street inside

the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) complex inPasay City is named in his honor.

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The University of San Carlos has established the Don Vicente Sotto Cebuano Studies grant as a

contribution to the formation of a scholarly awareness of the various aspects of history, social life,

language, and the arts of Cebu.[4]