Rallos, Sotto, and the Duterte women

This week, on August 10 in 1903, Florentino Rallos was suspended as municipal president (now the post of mayor) of Cebu. His vice president (now the post of vice mayor), Filemon Sotto, took over but he, too, was suspended for disobedience on December 23, 1903. Both men were known for their fierce independent spirit and love for the common man. What’s interesting is that both men fell in love with two Duterte women before settling down with their legal spouses. And even more interesting, one married the daughter of the other.

Florentino Rallos is known today for being the first Cebuano to be elected as municipal president of Cebu (which was still a municipality then) on January 10, 1899 when Cebuano revolutionary leaders organized the civilian government that elected Rallos as the first chief executive of Cebu with Alejandro Valle as his vice president. Because of his extreme fierce patriotism and independence, Rallos often clashed with the powers that be. One time, a fistfight happened between Vicente Sotto and a Spaniard by the name of Fidel Moas. As it was before and as it is today, the Spanish consul in Cebu was able to pull some strings and prevent the arrest of Moas. Not contented with simply getting away scot-free, Moas and some other Spaniards decided to assault the police.

Don Florentino arrived and was disgusted at what transpired and immediately ordered Moas’ arrest. Unfortunately for Rallos, the half-Spanish and Spanish-educated governor of Cebu, Don Julio Llorente y Aballe, soon arrived and sided with the Spaniards and the American colonial government had no choice but to suspend President Rallos. This was just one of the examples of how Rallos wanted to always defend Cebuanos from foreign influence. And this moment in time also probably contributed to the defeat of Julio Llorente when he ran for governor in the 1902 election and was defeated by Juan Climaco.

We know, too, that Filemon Sotto was a brother of Senator Vicente Sotto, and that he himself would also later become a senator of the Philippines. Earlier, he held positions in the municipal council of Cebu and later as a member of the Philippine Assembly. He was also a strong supporter of women’s right to suffrage and in fact sponsored the first bill seeking to amend the laws of the land and allow women to vote.

An interesting commonality between Rallos and Sotto was their liaison with Duterte cousins. The women of the Duterte Clan of Cebu were always known for their independence and liberalism, and when Florentino Rallos had several children with Filomena Duterte, this was not something new. Interestingly, Filomena’s father, Escolastico Duterte, was a good friend of Don Florentino Rallos. Two of Florentino’s and Filomena’s seven children were Beatriz and Soledad Duterte, who both founded with their husbands, Agustin Jereza and Miguel Sanson, respectively, what is now the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF). Florentino later married Maria Fadullon and they had two daughters, Concepcion and Carmen.

On the other hand, Filemon Sotto had a liaison with Remedios Duterte, one of the recognized beauties of Cebu in the early 1900s, and they had two children, though only one, a daughter, survived to adulthood. Filemon Sotto would later legally married Carmen Rallos, the daughter of Florentino Rallos. So, not only were Florentino Rallos and Filemon Sotto fellow politicians and good friends, they also fell in love with women from the same family, had children with them, but then married other women. What’s more, Filemon Sotto became Rallos’s son-in-law when he married Florentino’s daughter! Such interesting interconnections between and among our early leaders, something that continues to happen today.