Vic Sotto

Also known as: Marvic Valentin Castelo Sotto · Marvic Sotto · Bossing · Bossing Vic · Vic

Definition

Vic Sotto — Marvic Valentin Castelo Sotto, born April 28, 1954, in Manila — is a Filipino actor, comedian, singer, and television host known throughout the industry as Bossing, the long-standing title the Philippine entertainment press applies to the senior figure of the noontime stage. A founding member of the Manila Sound disco band VST & Company, formed in 1978 around the Sotto brothers and Spanky Rigor, he has been a host of Eat Bulaga! since its premiere on July 30, 1979 — the program this wiki’s Tito Sotto and Joey de Leon entries document — forming one-third of the “TVJ” trio, and he led the trio’s recovery of the Eat Bulaga! name through TVJ Productions after the 2023 split from TAPE Inc. (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto, Wikipedia — VST & Company)

His film record is built on fantasy comedy: the Okay Ka, Fairy Ko! films of 1991–1992, the Enteng Kabisote series of 2004–2016 produced through his company M-Zet Productions, and crossover hits including Si Agimat at si Enteng Kabisote — a run that brought him multiple Box-Office King distinctions from the Guillermo Mendoza Memorial Scholarship Foundation. As of this entry’s October 2026 verification he continues to host Eat Bulaga! on TV5, the program having marked its 47th anniversary on July 30, 2026. (Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise, Rappler)

Identities

Source	Identifier	URL
Wikipedia	Vic Sotto	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Sotto
Wikidata	Vic Sotto (Q3543507)	https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3543507
DBpedia	Vic_Sotto	https://dbpedia.org/page/Vic_Sotto
ProductOntology	N/A	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A	N/A
MeSH	N/A	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A	N/A
Google Scholar	Vic Sotto Marvic Castelo Sotto Eat Bulaga TVJ VST Company Enteng Kabisote Philippine comedy	https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Vic+Sotto%22+Eat+Bulaga+Philippine+comedy
ConceptNet	N/A	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A	N/A

Also Known As

Marvic Valentin Castelo Sotto
Marvic Sotto
Bossing
Bossing Vic
Vic

Examples and Analogies

The house band’s guitarist turned head of the household: Sotto began as a Vicor singer-guitarist and the disco band’s founding member, then spent five decades as the constant center of Philippine noontime television. (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto, Wikipedia — VST & Company)
A franchise carried on one character’s shoulders: Enteng Kabisote — the mechanic married to a fairy, created for the 1987–1997 sitcom Okay Ka, Fairy Ko! — worked like a reusable chassis: ten films between 1991 and 2016 mounted different stories on the same comic frame, all sold on Sotto’s presence. (Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise)
The name as the asset: the 2023–2024 Eat Bulaga dispute taught the Philippine industry that a program’s title can be worth more than its studio: TVJ walked out of TAPE Inc., and within seven months an injunction and a trademark cancellation returned the name to the hosts who created it. (Rappler)
Verified career data:
Born: April 28, 1954, Manila; parents Marcelino Antonio Ojeda Sotto and Herminia Castelo Sotto; brothers Val (b. 1945), Tito (b. 1948), and Marcelino Jr. (b. 1951); educated at Colegio de San Juan de Letran (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto)
Music: singer-guitarist at Vicor Music; founding member of VST & Company, formed 1978 — hits “Awitin Mo at Isasayaw Ko,” “Ikaw ang Aking Mahal,” “Rock Baby, Rock,” “Magsayawan”; band active 1978–1983 (Wikipedia — VST & Company)
Band name: per Tito Sotto, “VST” came from “Vicente Sotto the Third,” a Vicor working name, later taken to represent Vic Sotto and Spanky Rigor, with “Company” for the studio rhythm section (Wikipedia — VST & Company)
Television: Iskul Bukol (1978–1988); Eat Bulaga! host since July 30, 1979; Okay Ka, Fairy Ko! (1987–1997); Daddy Di Do Du, Ful Haus, Vampire ang Daddy Ko, Hay, Bahay!, Daddy’s Gurl (2018–2023), Open 24/7; host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (2009–2015) (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto)
Film franchises: Okay Ka, Fairy Ko! (1991) and Part 2 (1992); Enteng Kabisote films of December 25, 2004–2007; Si Agimat at si Enteng Kabisote (2010); Enteng ng Ina Mo (2011); Si Agimat, si Enteng Kabisote at si Ako (2012); Enteng Kabisote 10 and the Abangers (2016); also Lastikman (2003), My Little Bossings (2013), Jack Em Popoy (2018), The Kingdom (2024) (Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise, Wikipedia — Vic Sotto)
Box office: GMMSF Box-Office King 2004–2007, tied 2011, 2016, and tied 2019; 2008 All-Time Box-Office King Special Award; the 2004 Enteng Kabisote film made ₱83.6 million, and Enteng Kabisote 3 won Best Picture at the 2006 Metro Manila Film Festival (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto, Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise)
Production: owns M-Zet Productions, producer of the Enteng Kabisote films (Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise)
Family: married Dina Bonnevie in 1982 (annulled 1992), children Danica (b. 1983) and Oyo (b. 1984); son Vico Sotto (b. 1989) with Coney Reyes; daughter Paulina with Angela Luz; married Pauleen Luna on January 30, 2016; six children (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying Philippine Noontime Television

Sotto’s file is one of three continuous presences in Eat Bulaga! from July 30, 1979 to the present — across RPN, ABS-CBN, GMA, and TV5 — the spine on which the history of the noontime format and its TV5 continuation are written. (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto, Rappler)

2. Analyzing the TVJ-TAPE Intellectual Property Dispute

Entertainment-law study of the 2023 split uses the documented sequence — the May 31, 2023 severance from TAPE Inc., the July 1, 2023 premiere of E.A.T. on TV5 through TVJ Productions, the December 2023 IPOPHL trademark cancellation, the January 5, 2024 Marikina court injunction, and the January 6, 2024 reclamation of the name — in which Sotto is a principal. (Rappler)

3. Tracing Manila Sound and OPM

Music historians count VST & Company among the defining acts of the Manila Sound, with Sotto a founding member of the 1978 group whose “Awitin Mo at Isasayaw Ko” and “Rock Baby, Rock” carried Filipino disco into the national songbook. (Wikipedia — VST & Company)

4. Surveying the Fantasy-Comedy Film Genre

Film surveys of Philippine family comedy work through the Okay Ka, Fairy Ko! and Enteng Kabisote franchises — ten films, mostly Metro Manila Film Festival entries, produced by M-Zet — as the genre’s commercial backbone of the 1990s and 2000s. (Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise)

5. Researching Personality-Driven Production

Sotto’s M-Zet Productions is a case study in performer-owned film production: the star fronts, produces, and franchises his own vehicles — the vertically integrated model behind the Enteng Kabisote series. (Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise)

Strategies

Date the split precisely. The Eat Bulaga rupture has fixed points — May 31, July 1, December 2023, January 5, and January 6, 2024 — and analysis that blurs them collapses a legal sequence into gossip. (Rappler)
Separate the trio record from the individual record. VST & Company and Eat Bulaga are collective enterprises; Sotto’s individual file — the Enteng Kabisote franchise, M-Zet, the Box-Office King run — stands on its own documentation. (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto, Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise)
Treat the 1982 case as record, not verdict. The Pepsi Paloma matter ended without trial and without conviction of any accused; responsible treatment states the documented filings, the affidavit of desistance, and the published apology without converting accusation into finding. (Wikipedia — Pepsi Paloma)
For living persons: documented record only. The 2025 film-related litigation is recorded at its documented dates and outcomes; characterizations beyond the record belong to commentary, not to the entry. (Rappler — habeas data)

Security and Safety Measures

Intellectual-property lesson from the split: the IPOPHL cancellation and the court injunction that returned Eat Bulaga! to its creators are the industry’s documented case for registering program rights at creation rather than litigating for them four decades later. (Rappler)
Habeas data as a reputational remedy: Sotto’s January 2025 petition before the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 205 produced a January 27, 2025 ruling ordering the takedown of a film teaser found to rest on an unverifiable confrontation between two dead persons — the court itself noting that defamation suits are better suited to reputational harm. (Rappler — habeas data)
Gag order and sub judice discipline: the same court issued a gag order over the case, and reporting that respects it confines itself to the orders issued. (Rappler — habeas data)
Handle unadjudicated allegations as record: the 1982 Paloma case produced an affidavit of desistance, no trial, and no conviction; the documented record includes the accused’s denial, the apology published in the October 13, 1982 People’s Journal, and Paloma’s death on May 31, 1985 — stated without verdict. (Wikipedia — Pepsi Paloma)

Historical Context

Marvic Valentin Castelo Sotto was born in Manila on April 28, 1954, the youngest of the four Sotto brothers — Val, Vicente (“Tito”), Marcelino Jr., and Vic — of the family headed by Marcelino Antonio Ojeda Sotto and Herminia Castelo Sotto. He came up through music, as a Vicor singer-guitarist and founding member of VST & Company, the 1978 Manila Sound-disco group conceived by his brother Tito at Vicor with lyricist Joey de Leon. Television fused the trio: Iskul Bukol from 1978, then the July 30, 1979 premiere of Eat Bulaga!, where Tito, Vic, and Joey became fixtures of Philippine noontime viewing. (Wikipedia — Vic Sotto, Wikipedia — VST & Company)

The 1980s and 1990s made him a comedy-film franchise: Okay Ka, Fairy Ko! on television from 1987 and in film in 1991–1992, and from December 25, 2004 the Enteng Kabisote films — four consecutive festival entries through 2007, the third winning Best Picture at the 2006 Metro Manila Film Festival, then the Agimat crossovers of 2010–2012 and Enteng Kabisote 10 in 2016 — a run underwritten by his GMMSF Box-Office King distinctions and produced through M-Zet. (Wikipedia — Enteng Kabisote franchise, Wikipedia — Vic Sotto)

The 2023 split from TAPE Inc. — the production company that had run Eat Bulaga! since 1981 — produced seven months of rival programs before the December 2023 IPOPHL cancellation and the January 5, 2024 injunction settled the name with its creators; TVJ Productions, the venture with MediaQuest, took the name the following day. In January 2025 the teaser for a film on the 1982 Pepsi Paloma case drew his habeas data petition; the Muntinlupa court on January 27, 2025 ordered the teaser’s deletion while allowing the film itself, and cyber libel charges he filed proceeded against the director, who pleaded not guilty in June 2025. As of October 2026 he continues to host Eat Bulaga! on TV5. (Rappler, Rappler — habeas data, Wikipedia — Pepsi Paloma)

Challenges and Controversies

The 1982 Pepsi Paloma Case

In 1982 the actress Pepsi Paloma accused Sotto, Joey de Leon, and Richie D’Horsie of rape at the Sulo Hotel in Quezon City; after an affidavit of desistance attributed by later accounts to pressure from Tito Sotto — a claim Tito Sotto denies — the case did not go to court, and no conviction was entered against any accused. The three published an apology in the October 13, 1982 People’s Journal; Paloma was found dead on May 31, 1985, an apparent suicide. A 2025 film on the case renewed public attention. (Wikipedia — Pepsi Paloma)

The 2023 Split from TAPE Inc.

The rupture between the hosts and the company that had produced Eat Bulaga! since 1981 — TAPE’s version on GMA, the TVJ-led E.A.T. on TV5 — ended with the December 2023 trademark cancellation and the January 2024 injunction returning the name to its creators. The outcome is judicially documented; the split stands as the defining dispute of Sotto’s later career. (Rappler)

The 2025 Film-Teaser Litigation

The teaser for a film on the Paloma case triggered a two-track contest: a habeas data petition resolved January 27, 2025 with the teaser’s court-ordered deletion, the film’s production allowed, and a gag order issued — and cyber libel charges against the director, who pleaded not guilty in June 2025. Rappler’s analysis flagged the ruling’s free-speech implications, even as it noted the court’s own caution that defamation law is the ordinary remedy for reputational harm. (Rappler — habeas data)