Ali Sotto has really come a long way from being the singer Aloha in the late ‘70s, who recorded George Canseco songs.

Sotto, now 63,  is set to  join NET25’s Mata ng Agila Primetime News as the co-anchor of Alex Santos. It's her second news and public affairs program on the network, the first being Ano sa Palagay N'yo?, a morning show which she has been hosting with Pat-P Daza since 2022.

Aloha became Ali Sotto when she married Maru Sotto, a brother of Tito Sotto and Vic Sotto, who was an executive of Vicor/Blackgold Records where Aloha was a recording artist in the late ‘70s.

The Gen Z's of today may not even be aware that Sotto recorded compositions of George Canseco, who discovered her in an inter-university singing contest held at FEU Manila, where Aloha Leilani Carag represented the nearby University of Sto. Tomas, where she was a high school student (though she went on to college also at UST and graduated cum laude in Communication Arts in the early ‘80s). Canseco was among the judges, and Carag won first prize by singing impromptu and accompanying herself with a guitar.

She and some classmates went to FEU just to watch the contest, but she was prevailed upon by her classmates to join as the UST representative when it was announced that there was no contestant from that nearby University. Carag went up on stage in jeans and a blouse while all the others were in gowns or very presentable outfits.

The singer married when she was only 19, froze her singing career, gave birth to two sons, then separated amicably from her husband after seven years. She gave up her Law studies at Ateneo de Manila University, where she was a Dean's lister.

She rejoined showbiz as Ali Sotto but no longer as a singer. She became an actor and eventually a public affairs host on DZRH, particularly with Joe Taruk in the early ‘90s.

Sotto was rarely a regular news reader in any of the networks she has worked in. She has mainly been a host or co-host who is opinionated, makes faces, bangs and laughs a lot. A radio program she hosted with Arnold Clavio on DZBB once had her and Clavio partly delivering their commentaries by singing them. 

So, can Sotto deliver the news with a straight face and without mouthing an opinion about a news story she has just read?

She recently sat down one-on-one with Santos as a guest on her show Ano sa Palagay N'yo? Sotto admitted she gets affected by new stories about deaths of sons and daughters because she lost her younger son Mico Sotto in 2004. (The young Sotto fell from a building at the time he was the boyfriend of Angel Locsin, who was just a rising GMA 7 actor. Sotto's death fall propelled her to full stardom.) 

She promised Santos she would do her best to remain composed if she has to read reports about young people's demise. She said the same about reporting deaths of actors she has worked with. Sotto has appeared in about 2O films, including a handful with "Da King" Fernando Poe Jr. She was still with GMA News and Public Affairs when FPJ died in 2015, and she was sent to cover the great actor's wake at Sto. Domingo Church in QC.

“Affected na affected ako sa pagbabalita ko on-cam dahil hindi lang sa isang pelikula ni FPJ ako nakasama kundi sa marami," Sotto confided to Santos.

So, watch for her co-anchoring the Net25 prime newscast soon. Santos used to be a field reporter and news anchor on ABS-CBN but moved on to DWIZ news center and stayed on for a few years, then joined Net25. His broadcast journalism career began on the now-defunct ABS-CBN Davao City.

Mata ng Agila Primetime News airs Monday to Friday, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., with live streams via NET25’s official Facebook page and YouTube channel.

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There's a mother and daughter team at Vivamax: Len Carillo, the mother, producer; Quinn Carillo, the daughter acts and writes scripts. In their family company's latest project for Vivamax, Dayo, the daughter was asked by the male director, Sid T. Pascua, to be his assistant director.