By Jonathan Dela Cruz
Tito Sen is of course the masses’ endearing popularized tag for newly elected Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, the longest-serving member of the Upper Chamber. Sotto’s time has come. Often derided by those who should know better, Tito Sen has metamorphosed from one of the most recognizable faces on TV to a hardworking, friendly and highly regarded legislator.
I first met Tito Sen in the company of a very good friend of mine the late Ambassador Reynaldo ‘Boy’ Parungao, his classmate in Letran. Amba Boy had a lot of stories about him mostly about his being a “crush ng mga kolehiyala” and a leading member of one of the leading bands in the 1960s, Tiltdown Men. Apparently, this was the school’s answer to the La Salle’s Moonsrucks and the Ateneo’s chorale. Early on, Amba Boy intimated Tito Sen was a restless soul trying to make the most out of his teenage years.
He was not as serious as the class nerds such as Hector Villacorta, the class valedictorian who is now Secretary of the Senate and Lito Banayo, our Meco chairman and Representative in Taiwan. I got the sense then that Amba Boy and Tito Sen were in the same class – restless and carefree but headed to bigger, serious endeavors as has happened.
Later on, in the early ‘80s, when Amba Boy and myself served in Saudi Arabia, I met Tito Sen again when we invited him and members of the Philippine bowling team to visit Saudi Arabia as part of the Embassy’s ‘Alay sa mga Kababayan’ program to engage the exploding Pinoy workforce in that country in wholesome endeavors and ease their stay. There was no other means by which we could get them together except through sports. That was the time that our very own Paeng Nepomuceno became World Bowling Champion and “Eat Bulaga,” where Tito Sen was one of the mainstays, was hugely popular. The show remains a hit today.
That kind of realism and sensitivity to the things which matter most to the vast majority of our people is what Tito Sen brings to his new position. Quite apart from his mastery of the workings of the chamber and his years of immersion in the issues and debates of the post 1986 political scene it is this ear for the things that matter most to the ordinary man, his fears and his dreams for the future that sets him up as the ‘People’s Senate President’. Having been a local government executive once (vice mayor to then Quezon City mayor Jun Simon in 1986) he knows full well the ills afflicting most of our people. That he has distinguished himself on the softer side of governance given his background that should make him a perfect partner to our hard driving, iron-willed Chief Executive.
So, as he takes on his new role as leader of the Upper Chamber, I wish Tito Sen and his colleagues all the best as they endeavor to make good on their promises of a better life for us all.