Sofronio Vasquez finds his voice in the USA

No one wants to put it this bluntly these days: Because we Pinoys in the Philippines never made a singing champion of Sofronio Vasquez, he went back home to Ozamis City, Misamis Occidental in 2019, after emerging third place only in Tawag ng Tanghalan, All-Star Grand Resbak and eventually completed his dentistry course in his home province. In 2022, he went to the US to work as a dental assistant, and joined The Voice USA this year. The rest is (new) history, of course.

As recently recalled by ABS-CBN News, Vasquez first joined Tawag ng Tanghalan, a major segment on It’s Showtime, in 2016 but he fell short of qualifying to be a finalist. He competed for the second time in 2017 and reached the semifinals.

Vasquez returned to the competition in 2019 by joining the TNT All-Star Grand Resbak where he finished as a grand finalist.

Having become grand winner in The Voice USA, Vasquez gratefully acknowledged in a live interview on It’s Showtime, on 12 December (in the Philippines) that it was in Tawag ng Tanghalan that he was “nabatak” (stretched) as a singer. And instead of saying he didn’t become a favorite of any of the judges, Vasquez decided recently, too, to repost Rey Valera’s comment about him as head judge in that Resbak edition.

It was actually some netizens who first reposted Valera’s comment. Vasquez saw one of them and decided to share it through his Instagram Stories.

Valera told him on-camera before the final result of the 2019 Resbak edition was announced: “Alam mo gumawa ka ng reputasyon dito, ha, at tuwing makikita kita sa labas, ang meaning ko, tuwing magkakasalubong tayo, ikaw lang yung nakikita kong walang kasama.

“Wala, ikaw lang mag-isa, you’re all alone. Hindi ko maintindihan why? I think [may pagkakapareho] tayo konti.

“You are your best friend. Ikaw ang mentor mo, sarili mo. Ikaw na rin ‘yung cheering squad mo at the same time. Kung hindi ka man ngitian ng Lady Luck ngayon, I’m sure dahil ‘yon sa alam niya na ikaw ang gagawa ng sarili mong suwerte at hindi mo siya kailangan.

“Because ‘yung ganyang klaseng tao, you will always find your way (You know, you have made an impression for yourself here. And every time I would see you outside, whenever we bumped into each other, you would be alone. I guess we are similar in that way. You are your own best friend — your own mentor. If lady luck does not smile on you now, I believe it is because she knows that you will create your own luck. You don’t need her. Because you are that kind of person, you will find your own way).”

But one reason Vasquez was alone most of the time is that he most likely did not have friends in Metro Manila. His family and friends were is in Ozamis City. Only his oldest brother was going with him to Metro Manila.

Vasquez also recalled that he joined the “blind audition” in The Voice Philippines in 2014, and no coach turned around for him.

Ironically, in his blind audition in The Voice USA, he is believed to be the first to have a four-chair turns from the coaches Michael Bublé, Gwen Stefani, Reba McEntire, and Snoop Dogg. Vasquez chose to be with the Bubble team.

Though Vasquez is grand champ in the US, he hardly has colonial mentality. If he had it, he would have chosen to go for an American first name when he first joined “Tawag ng Tanghalan.” He could have presented himself as “Ron” or “Ronnie.” What he dropped from his legal name is “III.” In some publicity about him, we chanced upon one write up that presented him as “Sofronio Vasquez III.”

Vasquez looks bulkier now in the US than when he was in the Philippines. If he is 32 years old now, that means he was not even just in his early 20s when he first joined Tawag ng Tanghalan in 2016 but already 24. By 2019, he was 27.

If Vasquez wants to come back to the Philippines and establish a singing career here, it’s better that he does it in his mid-30s, not in the late 30s. And he should stop gaining weight. Vasquez is obviously younger than Martin Nievera and Gary Valenciano who are still considered the leading male pop singers in the country. If they are old now (Nievera is 62 and Valenciano 60), it’s because they started singing to the Pinoys in their 20s.

The Voice USA champions are taken to be less successful than the grand winners of America’s Got Talent who become global idols. One accusation against The Voice is that it takes care more of its hosts than its winners.

Take note that our two-voiced Marcelino Pomoy, a grand finalist in America Got Talent, still gets international booking. We see his engagements posts in his social media. If it is easy for us these days to accept SB19 member Stell Ajero singing like Claudine

Dionne, it’s because Pomoy popularized it long before the

bi-gendered vocal prowess of Ajero turned up.

We hope this is not silly to voice out: Sofronio Vasquez should come home as soon as he can and allow himself to be massively admired and loved by his countrymen over here and not across oceans. The Pinoys should make it up to him and his art of singing.\

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Allow us one more bold (bad?) opinion (prediction): And the Breadwinner is... will do even better in the box office because of the presence of the loveteam of Maris Racal and Anthony Jennings. Because people don’t see them at promo shows in the malls, they’ll flock to the film to see the hot lovers on the big screen.

And by January, more people will watch the series Incognito because of Racal’s minimal outfits in many scenes. If it’s announced, wittingly or unwittingly, that Jennings wears a lot of tanks and shorts in his scenes (sins), the male gays and the Gen Z girls will tune in to Incognito all the time.