Course Title: GE 224 Ethnographic Literature

Brief Course Description: An introductory course on ethnographic

representations of diverse Filipino society and culture through literary expressions
and texts.
Time Period: Prelim
Instructor: Adrian Y. Franco
Lesson: 07.2
Topic: Cebuano Literature Feature – Vicente Sotto’s Elena

About the Author:

Vicente Sotto y Yap was a Filipino politician who served as a Senator from 1946
to 1950. He also served in the House of Representatives from 1922 to 1925,
representing Cebu's 2nd district. He was the main author of the Press Freedom Law
(now known as the Sotto Law, Republic Act No. 53)

In 1899 (then just 22 years old), he put up La Justicia, the first newspaper in Cebu
published by a Philippine citizen, in which he defended the issue of Philippine
independence. It was suspended on orders by the American military governor.

In the week following, the undaunted Sotto begun publishing El Nacional. This
was also ordered closed and Sotto was imprisoned at Fort San Pedro for two
months and six days. After this experience, he began using the pen name Taga
Kotta (of the fort, or resident of the fort).

He was found guilty of treason as a member of a committee of rebels along with

those in Manila and Hong Kong. When he was freed in 1900, he published Ang
Suga (The Light), which was first issued on June 16, 1901.
He organized in Hong Kong in 1911 the English-Spanish fortnightly The
Philippine Republic. Its publication was stopped a year later and its editor was
arrested. Sotto's extradition was requested three times by the American government
but every time it was denied by the British courts. The Philippine Republic
resumed publication after a month of suspension.

In 1915, Sotto returned to Manila and begun work on a weekly journal he named
The Independent. He issued a special edition of this journal in Paris in 1929. The
news item prompted an American senator to introduce a resolution in the United
States Senate to grant immediate independence to the Philippines.

Sotto is regarded as the Father of Cebuano Language and Letters.

Sotto published Ang Suga, the first newspaper in Cebuano in 1900.

Sotto's play Paghigugma sa Yutang Natawhan (Love of Native Land), dramatized

the Cebuano people's heroic struggle against Spanish feudal rule in the modern
realist mode. He also wrote the first published Cebuano short story Maming in the
maiden issue of Ang Suga.

He wrote, directed, and produced the first Cebuano play Elena, a play in three acts.
It was first performed at the Teatro Junquera on May 18, 1902. The play
established Sotto's reputation as a playwright.

The dedication of the play by the playwright reads, "To My Motherland, that you
may have remembrance of the glorious Revolution that redeemed you from
enslavement. I dedicate this humble play to you."

Carlos P. Garcia, 8th President of the Philippines, a native of Bohol and fellow
Visayan, said of Sotto: "Vicente Sotto was a rock of Gibraltar in character because
of the ruggedness of his conviction, the indomitability of his soul, the sublimity of
his courage, and the depth of his faith in the ultimate triumph of justice. His knees
no bending, his pen signed no retraction, his march saw no retreat, and his soul of
steel knowns no surrender. He marshaled his efforts and used his influence to
secure and safeguard for the press the fullest measure of freedom. By his death the
country has lost a great patriot, his family has lost a loving and devote father, the
Senate has lost an illustrious member..."

Southern Islands Hospital, the primary public medical care facility in southern
Philippines, was renamed on May 21, 1992 to Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical
Center, in honor of the late senator. A street inside the Cultural Center of the
Philippines Complex in Pasay is named in his honor.

The University of San Carlos has established the Don Vicente Sotto Cebuano
Studies grant as a contribution to the formation of a scholarly awareness of the
various aspects of history, social life, language, and the arts of Cebu.
Elena is a Cebuano play in three acts written by Vicente Sotto. It was first
performed at the Teatro Junquera (in what is now Cebu City) on May 18, 1902.
The play established Sotto's reputation as a playwright.

The dedication of the play by the playwright reads, "To My Motherland, that you
may have remembrance of the glorious Revolution that redeemed you from
enslavement. I dedicate this humble play to you."

The Story…
The play depicts the last few days of Spanish rule in a town in Luzon, before the
insurrectos capture it. The curtain opens on a young mestiza, Elena, asking for and
gaining the consent of her mother, Salvadora, to her planned elopement with and
marriage to Marcial, an insurrecto and son of an insurrecto general. It is
immediately clear that both women live in dread of the Spanish father, Ciriaco, the
commander of the voluntarios (volunteers) of the town. Ciriaco hates Marcial and
looks at him as a traitor to the flag of Spain and a dark-skinned upstart who has
dared to fall in love with his daughter. He planned to marry off Elena only to a
Spaniard.

Elena shows her mother a letter from Marcial. The letter describes how he is to
descend from his mountain hide-out and steal her from her house. The letter is
discovered by Ciriaco. Marcial is captured, beaten up, and thrown into prison.

Elena and Salvadora steal the prison key from Marcial's room and release Marcial.
They intend to go with Marcial to the mountains. But the guard wakes up on them.
Marcial seizes the guard's gun and shoots him. The gunshots rouse the other
soldiers from their sleep. In the commotion Marcial escapes, although wounded.
The women are caught. An infuriated Ciriaco orders them thrown into Marcial's
cell, not knowing they were his wife and daughter (they covered their faces).
Marcial heals his wound in the mountain hide-out and persuades his father to
permit him to join Commander Kidlat (a reference to Leon Kilat, the leader of anti-
Spanish rebels in Cebu), the leader of the siege on the town. His father refused.
Kidlat arrives and reports that the town is theirs for the taking because the Filipino
soldiers have defected to the side of the rebels, the townspeople have openly
declared their support to the attackers, and Ciriaco and his soldiers are just holding
up in the tribunal, the seat of Spanish rule in the town.

In the tribunal, Ciriaco is compelled by his friends to bring down the Spanish flag
and raise a white handkerchief. Then he signs a peace treaty with Commander
Kidlat. After the commander leaves, Ciriaco contemplates a dim future for himself
and all other Spaniards who, like him, have sought and found their fortunes in the
colonies. But the hardest blow to his Spanish pride is having fallen prisoner to mga
ulipon sa España (slaves of Spain). He shoots himself to death.

The insurrectos enter the town with solemn ceremony. Elena and Salvadora exults
that the General (who is Salvadora's brother) has saved them all. But the General
says, "It isn't so. Because your true savior is that flag which is now being raised,"
and he points to the Philippine flag which was slowly raised up the pole over the
town. While the band plays Marcha Nacional Filipina revolutionaries execute
present arms. The Spaniards lower their eyes.

The characters…
 Elena - a young mestiza (daughter of a Spanish father and an indio)
 Marcial - Elena's lover
 Ciriaco - Elena's father
 Salvadora - Elena's mother
 Commander Kidlat -The General

Short Analysis:
The conclusion of the play underscores its real theme of Motherland Filipinas and
brings the development of the theme into full circle. Early in the plot, Salvadora's
embittered confession to Elena about the real state of her marriage to a Spanish
husband describes the unhappy state of the Motherland under Spanish domination:
"I want you to know Elena how deeply I regret having married your father. He is
making it clear to me now that my wealth was all he was after; my wealth that he
has dissipated in gambling, drinking, and wenching. He snarls at me all the time.
At the slightest pretext, he kicks me like an animal. He has brutalized over me
most severely. In his eyes, I'm nothing but a lowly servant, a slave, now that he has
dissipated the money that I've made. This is what I've got for marrying a man of
alien race, blood, language, and culture.

It took nothing less than heroic courage for Sotto to write and produce this play
when he did. At this time, the Filipinos were still seething with resentment at the
American betrayal of their hopes and the new colonizers were retaliating with
restrictions on the freedom of expressions.

References:
Diango, Hector Paolo E. "Don Vicente Sotto's 135th birth anniversary
commemorated". Philstar.com. Retrieved 2021-04-03.
Go, Fe Susan. “THE PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENT CHURCH: RELIGIOUS
CONVERSION AND THE SPREAD OF AGLIPAYANISM IN CEBU
PROVINCE.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, vol. 8, no. 2/3, 1980,
pp. 150
Ciudad de Cebu was demoted to the Town of Cebu during the American
occupation.
Oaminal, Clarence Paul (May 18, 2016). "The 1937 Cebu provincial elections |
The Freeman". philstar.com. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
Inquirer.net
Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center Website
"About USC - University of San Carlos". Archived from the original on 2012-05-
11. Retrieved 2012-04-27.