You can usually point out the arrogant person in the room, these people share a common trait: in that they feel superior over their peers for a reason only known to them.
One does not need to be in the same room as Senator Tito Sotto to bear witness to his sheer arrogance, of which he is unashamed of.
Case in point his recent debacle with former child actor and now chairman of the National Youth Commission, Aiza Seguerra. The latter criticized Sotto constructively through social media regarding the Senator’s baseless charge against the Department of Health’s decision to distribute free condoms among public high schools.
The Senator responded in a distasteful manner, targeting Seguerra personally by calling her a “fledgling politician” and even recalling the favors he gave her when she was still a newcomer in the entertainment industry – implying that the actress owes him.
To top it all off, Sotto demonstrates his misogyny by saying Seguerra and other critics should “buy themselves some time to read and study before [they] speak about serious issues that men like me have been championing for decades.”
As if being a man was relevant to his argument at all.
Sotto also stated he, “does not know where [Seguerra] is coming from”. The reason why Seguerra hit back at his comments is because as youth commissioner, she has a duty to voice out the concerns among youths.
In her address directed at Sotto, Seguerra pointed out how youths were disproportionately affected by the rising HIV/AIDS epidemic. Aside from the sexually-transmitted disease, Seguerra also mentioned the rising teen pregnancy rates as a problem which needs to be addressed.
Yet those valid concerns were not met with constructive discourse by Senator Sotto, who chose to engage in name-calling and sexism instead. These are the marks of an arrogant person, believing that one is above proper debate and attack the person instead.
This was not the first instance Sotto’s arrogance came into display, in 2012 he used the same arguments to absolve himself out of a plagiarism incident – which failed miserably.
In 2012, he was accused by blogger Sarah Pope of using excerpts from the latter’s blog in his privilege speech addressing the Reproductive Health Bill. In response, Sotto denied having any intention of plagiarizing Pope since, “she is just a blogger.”
The Senator clearly implied that he is above the level of a blogger and thus he would never imitate the wisdom of one. Unfortunately for Sotto, it was later admitted by his personal chief-of-staff that his writers did plagiarize Pope when crafting his privilege speech.
It turned out that Sotto had plagiarized two other bloggers beside Pope, with all three filing a case against him before the Senate Ethic Committee that year. In response, Sotto played the victim card and accused all three of ‘cyberbullying’.
When his shame could no longer be hidden, the Senator issued an apology to the offended parties but maintained he did not plagiarize anything.
Clearly, Senator Sotto’s lack of remorse over the incident further proves his lack of class as a person and that he is devoid of any morals to be a Senator. But thanks to politics, Sotto was re-elected to a six-year term in the 2016 elections – virtually rewarding him for being a tactless loon.
Nevertheless, there remains five more years in Sotto’s time in the Senatorial spotlight for him to brandish his arrogance. Hopefully, one of those instances serves him with his just desserts.