Chit Roces Santos was all there

Photos courtesy of Leon Gallery

In the book launch of her collection of essays, Not Quite There, that is. She was certainly all there in her billowing, printed tent dress. She winked at me—the stylish dress was there to better camouflage unmentionable stubborn belly fat or, shall we call them, abs for those advanced in age. This is where a LOL emoji is called for if this were being written for social media. But Teresita Roces Santos, who’s always been Chit to us, has mastered the art of the self-deprecating remark.

Copies of Not Quite There, 332 pages thick

I deliberately came early to buy copies of her second book (the first, Personal Space, was launched in 2013 at Powerbooks Greenbelt, now closed). I wanted to ensure that she would write a dedication to Fides Lim and husband Vic Ladlad, former peace negotiator and now a political prisoner, and to her fellow Theresian writer, Aurora T. Bautista and husband Des, both of Baguio. 

I handed her the ballpoint pen so she could write personalized inscriptions after which she asked to whom the ballpen belonged. She added with a straight face that as a student, she was almost accused of being a kleptomaniac because of a habit of pocketing pens that she picked. Or these may have been lent to her, and she had forgotten to return them.

From left, Anabelle Wisniewski, Cleo Llamas, Chit, Bingbing Santos, Genie Daland Palanca

Chit earlier signed all the books, hoping none of her guests would ask her to write personal messages anymore. At Leon Gallery (her publisher and launch venue), she so wanted to enjoy that Tuesday afternoon of reunions with relatives and friends from different facets of her long life.

Indeed (“indeed” is one of her favorite words) she kept to her word, but she made an exemption of me because I arrived earlier than the crowd that filled the gallery on whose halls hung works of painters like Fabian de la Rosa, Vicente Manansala, Fernando Zobel, Anita Magsaysay Ho, Danilo Dalena, BenCab, Nena Saguil, Lao Lianben, Elaine Navas.

Chit glowed against such a background of works by the masters. Or maybe I should’ve asked who did her hair and subtle makeup?

TheDiarist.ph founder/editor Thelma Sioson San Juan in the book launch, with veteran journalist and TheDiarist.ph contributor Vergel O. Santos on the foreground

The editor we have in common, Thelma Sioson San Juan, was called on by emcee Vergel O. Santos, Chit’s spouse, to introduce the author. The veteran journalist and popular columnist promised three short numbers so people could get on and mingle. The first number: introducing himself, the tennis player in his non-playing wife’s life. 

Thelma, who looked overwhelmed by the turnout of guests, called it a “BTS crowd”—the difference being some senior book buyers came with their yaya or alalay, others arrived in wheelchairs or held on to canes. But still they kept coming until I asked, as did many, to be excused while making one’s way across this crowded room.

Thelma recalled how Chit’s Inquirer weekly columns, which make up the book, “had straight reportage, blunt comments — a sharpshooter with guerilla tactics — sparing no one.” She traced how the author started as “a sheltered elitist,” then later “joined the brave, few honest voices in condemning a brutal regime and campaigning—investing with all her heart, mind and writer’s skill—for honest competent governance. No matter this late stage in life, the writer Chit is needed in this age of disinformation, fake news, all optics, AI.”

She called to task “elected leaders…(who) are putting on a show to distract us from the real arduous task of nation-building. They’re making us lose our sense of shame, at the very least When they’re trying to buy media wholesale, where the newsroom is struggling for the rigor and ethics of the profession, we need a Chit to say it like it is—the truth both casual and far-reaching and profound — before others rewrite the narrative and own it. Before the truth is hijacked. That much we owe our kids and the generation that comes after them. That they may know what really happened and why.”

Thelma warned that in this “era and space ruled by influencers, vloggers and politicians,… (i)t is so easy to delete democracy and the values we hold dear. You only have to click. But thanks to tech-challenged Chit and her generation, chances are she doesn’t know how to click delete… and our country becomes the better for it.”

Third number was Chit who read from her phone, using the Notes app, while thanking her various affiliations: the Roceses, the Santoses, the Reyeses, the Mahikari  and Siddha Yoga groups during her years of spiritual searching, the First Draft group of writers, her former editors, the Winner Foundation environmentalists, the Ship Foundation that protects women from domestic abuse, and her fun aqua belles. Yes, she exercises with the latter group in a swimming pool. She extended the welcome to classmates from St. Theresa’s and Maryknoll Colleges, and to the parliamentarians of the streets.

The extent of her connections was so vast

Her welcome effusively embraced even her Zumba classmates, barangay friends, friends who went back as far as her childhood “who are just as matibay as I… (and) my readers, who I believe are all of you.” It made me pause awhile and ask if Chit was running for public office. The extent of her connections was so vast.

Vergel and Chit Santos in the book launch

She gave a  special shoutout to couple Carlo Santiago and Jean Ferry-Santiago “whom she forgot to acknowledge in the book’s introduction , a sin so shameful that even old age is no excuse for the lapse.”  She called this oversight part of Vergel’s and her memory lapses which they have taken to call mga milagro ni Chit at Vergel. She credited Carlo for painstakingly selecting the essays in the book and categorizing them into sections, thus giving the book “a sense of order.”  The 11 sections of the book are: Culture and the Arts, Family, Home, Love, Places, Politics and Such (the longest with 13 essays), Reflections, Reminiscence, Seniorhood, Travel and Miscellaneous.

Jean was Chit’s lawyer in the custody case of granddaughter Mona, who is often cited in her essays. Jean helped Chit focus “on what was more important and inspired in me the confidence that I was doing the right thing and, therefore, could not lose. Indeed in the more important sense my granddaughter and I won. Mona, an American citizen, is in the US now, reunited with her father. I, on the other hand, am guiltlessly unburdened of an impossible task I was bound to bungle.” 

Vergel, Chit, Francisco King Rodrigo, Boots Anson Roa Rodrigo and Techie Ysmael Bilbao

She called the book launch “a meeting of likeminded and like-hearted people who share common values and aspirations. Are we not perhaps the critical mass needed in order to change things around and by some miracle bring back decency and true love of country inside and outside government?” This part was greeted by applause, a form of agreement or “hear hear.” It was a well-dressed crowd, but for a second there I thought that the people were gathered at the People Power Monument where Chit and Vergel have made their presence felt at crucial rallies.

She shared how her nephew Nolet, a budding historian, was able to trace the Roces roots to ancestors who, “like the more recent ones, had a penchant for choosing ‘the wrong and losing side’ of political battles. In 1833, the first known Alejandro Roces was deported to Cuba—for being a Liberal sympathizer. In 1836, he sailed to the Philippines, which in 1521 had already been known as Islas de los Ladrones—possibly with good reason, unless, of course, it was fake news. But, in 2026, we may have regained the dishonor.” (Ladrones means thieves.)

She attributed the “beautiful cover of the book” to her uncle Alfredo Roces’s painting of her. She said, “When I emailed him for permission to use the painting as cover for my book, without second thoughts he said yes. His suggested a design for the cover that would have shown only half of my face, perhaps to suit the title. But the painting was just too beautiful to be diminished in any way. This painting inspired the late (poet) Marne Kilates,  a dear friend, to write a poem about the sad-looking young lady imprisoned within convent walls.”

In this her second book, what the author offers readers are “glimpses of life from the vantage point of the circumstances of my birth and my era, the springtime of our 20th century…The country is by no means old, but I am. And it makes me sad that, in spite of a clear head-start, we’ve been left behind by our neighbors. I see it whenever we travel in the region.”

Chit invoked her faith in believing that the Philippine situation isn’t that hopeless. 

She quoted Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, in the movie Conclave who tried to sway “another cardinal from his chosen candidate for new Pope, warning him not to cling to the safety of certainty, a character trait he was attracted to in his own choice as against Lawrence’s candidate who admitted that he himself had doubts. But Cardinal Lawrence precisely thought that a candidate with doubts was the better choice . He says, ‘If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery and therefore no need for faith.’ The choice of a new Pope, we all know, is based on faith and its mysteries. Like in our case, before we can even hope there must be faith, faith in ourselves, in our country and in a Divine Plan. Because there is one! Did we ever imagine Duterte would be in The Hague to answer for his crimes?”

And indeed somehow, somewhere the personal and the political in Chit converge seamlessly, in spite of her having grown up a Roces.

Copies of Not Quite There are available at Leon Gallery, ground floor, Eurovilla 1, Rufino and Legazpi Streets, Legazpi Village, Makati City. Or get in touch with Rina Rose Formento at mobile 0926-790-2409 or Ashley Bautista, 0933-401-5881.