Ali Sotto: From singer to prime time news achor

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.

Pascua told the daughter to ask permission from her mom to be his assistant. The mother readily agreed. She actually wants her daughter to stop acting in their sex-oriented films because the daughter easily gets persuaded by whoever is directing her to do breast exposure and disrobing scenes.

The mother revealed that she does not watch her daughter's films and forbids all members of the family from watching Quinn's movies.

Dayo began streaming on Vivamax on Friday, 19 April. The producer's daughter wrote the script and got to direct some of the sex scenes done by Rica Gonzales, Audrey Avilla, Marco Gomez, Calvin Reyes and newcomer Nathan Rojas. 

The story is about bar sexy dancer Elsa (Gonzales) who also spends nights with some customers, including some lesbians. Elsa gets tired of her awful life in the city and moves to a seaside village in La Union where her best friend Aya (Avila) in the bar has gone back to enjoy a simple life.

But the "dayo" (generally, “an outsider”) falls in love with a tricycle boy (Reyes) and also discovers her bisexuality in that quaint village.  

As Vivamax has decided to stream new two to three movies a week, it has actually been farming out film projects to independent companies. Among them is 3:16 Media headed by Len Carillo who used to collaborate with Mentorque Productions of John Bryan Diamante (also known as Bryan Dy) for some sex-oriented movies in 2022 (including two scripted by Quinn).

Mentorque is the producer of Mallari, the 2023 Metro Manila Film Festival entry of Piolo Pascual. The company seems to have completely ceased any relationship with 3:16 Media. Its publicity for Mallari never mentioned the company's previous film outputs. The company recently announced that its film project for 2024 is Biringan, a supposedly mythical island in the Philippines. 

Mentorque has yet to announce the cast of Biringan and its director. No mention of tie-up with any other local film company.

So, there it's possible to break out from Vivamax and sex-loaded movies. But then at the media conference for Dayo held at Viva Cafe in Cubao, Quezon City, the director announced that 3:16 Media has already signed him up for two more films, one of which is also set in La Union, most likely with Quinn as assistant director.

We found out that Quinn is a Multimedia student at Mint College. She said it is in that school that she learned how to write screenplays. She is not saying it firmly yet but the producer's daughter also sees herself directing films in the future. directing films in the future