Sotto’s speech brushed aside real issue

Sen. Vicente “Tito” Sotto describes as “callous and insensitive” former Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral’s challenge for him to produce the hospital records and death certificate of his son, Vincent Paul, to prove that the pills that Helen (Sotto’s wife) had taken caused the child to be born with a weak heart that required daily blood transfusion (Inquirer, 8/15/12). Sotto says Cabral’s challenge implies that he had lied about the death of his son.

I cannot imagine why Sotto, a movie actor-turned-politician who believes he is intelligent enough to be senator of the Philippine republic, can be so oversensitive. He has engaged in the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi, that is, he brushes aside the real issue—the Reproductive Health bill—and appeals to emotion. In public debates on issues of public concern, such as the RH bill, one has to back up with reason, logic and proof, his argument. Thus, the axiom in the science of augmentation, ei incumbit probatio qui decit non qui negat, it is incumbent upon one who alleges to prove his allegation, not one who denies it.

When an advocate refutes an assertion of fact made by the other for want of proof, he does not call or mean that the other is a liar. He simply asserts that the other’s factual argument, not substantiated by proof, is not valid and may be a fallacy. Want of proof does not necessarily mean the argument is a lie.

However, if Senator Sotto cannot back up his assertion of fact with proof, the impression would be that his public statement is not, after all, accurate, hence, undeserving of credence.

—REX G. RICO,

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