Do we like Vico Sotto?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A clean harm record, a real LGBTQ+ protection signed into law and a corruption fight at some cost, held back by an Ombudsman admonition and one contested media call-out.
Vico Sotto comes from a political family, but he made his name by breaking a dynasty. In 2019, a first-term councillor, he beat the incumbent mayor and ended the Eusebio family's 27-year hold on Pasig. He has said he won't build a Sotto dynasty in the city.
The story he's best known for lately is the flood-control corruption scandal. In December 2025 he urged the public not to buy the line that the Discayas were small fish, citing figures from the anti-money laundering council and alleging that the family worked across several administrations. Those are his allegations as reported, not court findings. In February 2026 he filed a complaint-affidavit against Sarah Discaya, his 2025 mayoral rival, alleging she overspent the campaign limit and under-declared her expenses; the article carried no response from her.
He isn't spotless on paper. In 2024 an advocacy group, Task Force Kasanag, filed complaints against him and seven other city officials alleging breaches of the anti-graft law. The Ombudsman dismissed them for lacking merit, but admonished Sotto to be more circumspect and warned a repeat would bring a heavier penalty. Dismissed, with a ticking-off, is a fair way to put it.
His other stoush was in August 2025, when he questioned whether broadcasters Korina Sanchez and Julius Babao had been paid for friendly interviews with the Discayas. Both denied it, and Sanchez's producers rejected the idea of a pay-for-placement deal. It's a contested call, and I found no evidence backing his claim in what I read, so it stays a mark in the asterisk column.
On the harm test he comes up clean. In March 2022 he signed Pasig's LGBTQ+ comprehensive anti-discrimination ordinance and a companion ordinance creating a Pride Development Council. I found no harmful words about LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, and no worrying company. The honest gap is climate: his flood-control crusade is about graft, and I found nothing from him on climate policy itself.
The June 2026 arrest of Curlee Discaya brought the usual online fight. Some critics, including Duterte supporters, said he paid too little attention to others tied to the scandal. His answer was that he would name the Discayas more because he had “PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE and EVIDENCE” about them. He also warned that corruption will return unless people keep fighting to de-normalize it.