Welcome home, Sofronio!

The country’s international singing champ — Sofronio Vasquez, 32 — is back in the country and was celebrated Monday (6 January) on ABS-CBN’s It’s Showtime, which has been airing widely for more than a year now on an accommodation (rental) arrangement on GMA 7, aside from ABS-CBN non-network digital platforms.

Those who have watched Vasquez in The Voice USA’s season 26 and caught him on that It’s Showtime episode may have been surprised that Vasquez is not as bulky as he was in almost all The Voice episodes in November and early December last year. 

Those episodes were variously taped at The Voice USA studios about three months before it began airing, kicking off with the blind auditions. In a remote interview of It’s Showtime while Vasquez was still in the US and had been judged and voted as the champion, he revealed that The Voice competitions for those who passed the blind auditions is actually spread out in several months. It wasn’t like in Tawag ng Tanghalan (TNT) on It’s Showtime in which the competitions were “tuluy-tuloy” and the whole competition is over within a few weeks. 

Vasquez emerged as finalist in three seasons of TNT, but never the grand champion in those seasons. 

That’s it: when The Voice USA season 26 began airing in November, Vasquez already knew he had won. He was sworn not to reveal to anyone most of the season’s results. 

Vasquez may have worked on losing weight soon after the championship taping, knowing that by December, after Season 26 had been fully aired, he would be booked for singing engagements either all by himself or with his world-famous The Voice mentor Michael Buble.

Still no aides

The new singing idol turned up at the ABS-CBN studios in Quezon City without an “alalay” to carry his huge backpack which may have contained his suit for his guesting on TNT. ABS-CBN posted on its YouTube videos of Vasquez taking the stairs alone to the second-floor studio of It’s Showtime with his backpack in tow. He knows his way around the studios not only because he was a three-time TNT finalist, but also because he was hired as vocal coach of contestants in the show soon after the third time he competed in the show.

Actually, it was only after he had been proclaimed The Voice USA champ that Vasquez revealed in some interviews that even if he did not become TNT champion, the show gave him that off-camera job as the contestants’ vocal coach.

Some wags thought Vasquez resented being just a finalist in all three seasons of TNT he joined. They are not aware that TNT is also the first TV singing contest that accepted him in 2019. He auditioned in Voice Philippines in the past and no judge turned their chair around for him. There were other TV contests that rejected him in the auditions. 

At last Monday’s It’s Showtime episode, host Vice Ganda stuck out his tongue twice to the netizens who bashed the show when the hosts referred to Vasquez in one episode as “our very own.” This was during the episode in which the hosts did a remote interview with Vasquez in the US a few days after he won in The Voice USA. Those wags asserted that the show cannot claim Vasquez as their “very own” because they never made him a champion. 

The bashers also pointed out that It’s Showtime had nothing to do with Vasquez’s moving to the US and eventually joining The Voice there. The struggling singer from Misamis Oriental in northern Mindanao actually went to the US initially to work as a dental assistant. Vasquez had completed a dental course in a university in Ozamis City (the provincial capital) in between joining three seasons of TNT at ABS-CBN in QC. He has been living and working at Utica in New York for a few years before he decided to audition for The Voice. 

First concert in Cebu

Last Monday, Vasquez opened the show with song numbers, where he was joined by “Tawag Ng Tanghalan” alums and hurados (judges), including Nyoy Volante, Darren Espanto, Yeng Constantino, Klarisse de Guzman, TNT champs JM Yosures, Lyka Estrella, Rea Gen Villareal, Reiven Umali, JM Dela Cerna and Marielle Yosures. 

Vasquez turned emotional when the show hosts interviewed him while the whole It’s Showtime family were standing behind him. Host Vice Ganda had mouthfuls of praises for him and revealed one more time that Vasquez was hired as a vocal coach soon after his third inclusion as TNT finalist. 

Vasquez teared up when asked to react to his victory at The Voice USA. He professed his gratitude to the noontime show for being the first one to pass the auditions after being rejected in all the others he had auditioned in. And then he assured all those who have been rejected many times to keep on trying until one show accepts them. 

Vasquez thanked everyone, including his coach (Buble), family, and revealed that his mother was in the studio. The camera quickly showed the extremely happy mother. (His father passed about a year before he decided to work in the US, along with an older brother.) 

The singing champ is slated to have a concert in Cebu City on 18 January. It isn’t known yet why he is doing his first concert in the country out there and not in Metro Manila. 

Those who didn’t get to watch Vasquez last Monday can turn to the YouTube snippets of his guesting stint on It’s Showtime. Vasquez has not announced other concerts in the country and how long he is staying here. He will most likely be asked to guest on ABS-CBN’s Sunday noontime musical variety ASAP Natin ‘To. 

We can’ t have enough of the man who is the first Pinoy and first male Asian to become champion in The Voice USA. Happily, he has come home not only sounding very good but also looking good and ready for the world.