Former Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto III

DAGUPAN CITY, Pangasinan--Expect Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas senatorial candidate Vicente "Tito" Sotto III to step up his campaign in the final few weeks before the May 12 mid-term elections.

Just don't expect him to dance on stage during campaign rallies.

"Campaign and more campaign. Information dissemination—‘yon pa rin (we'll stck to that)," Sotto, a former Senate President, told reporters in a press conference here when asked about his plans for the homestrech of the campaign period.

"Ipaalam sa ating mga kababayan ika nga what we stand for and what we plan to do, at hindi kami marunong sumayaw (Since we don't know how to dance, we will inform our countrymen what we stand for and what we plan to do)," he said, rather out of the blue.

But Sotto assured the voters that the Alyansa slate was good at legislation.

"Pagdating sa gawaan ng batas, doon kami magaling para sa ating kababayan. Magaling din kami gumastos ng pera ng taong bayan, sa tama. Ginagastos namin para sa taong bayan," said Sotto, who is vying for a record fifth term in the Senate.

(We're good when it comes to crafting laws for our countrymen. We're also good at spending public funds the right way. We spend it for the benefit of the people.)

It's worth noting that another Alyansa bet, reelectionist Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr., has made it part of his campaign gimmick to do the "budots" dance. Revilla didn't attend the presser.

Sotto and Revilla--stalwarts of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) and Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD), respectively--first gained prominence from their showbiz careers.

They have since earned their stripes as true-blue veteran legislators.