CINEMA'S GOOD GIRL By Rodolfo A.G. Silvestre Jr. She is Philippines cinema's Mother Virtue. Maria Eliza "Boots" Anson Roa is to the cinema what Chona Kasten is to high society, Ms Manners in an industry known for fights, real or imagined, in public view. No stranger to the crème de la crème, Boots finished elementary and high school at the Assumption Convent in Herran. This is the woman who, in her foray into the bold genre, didn't allow herself to be kissed on the lips. When she shot a scene on the beach, she wore a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved sweat shirt. "According to Ronnie (Poe) and Erap, with whom I was shooting a movie at the time, I looked like Joe Frazier!" Today, Boots occupies various positions where her familiarity with the ways of power and influence, as well as her values, are put to good use. Recently, she was appointed member of the Cinema Evaluation Board under the newly created Film Development Council. Since June of 2001, she has been chair of the Cinema Committee of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and just last December she started work as Executive Director of the Movie Workers' Welfare Foundation or Mowelfund. As a presstime, she was getting ready for the annual "Pelikula at Lipunan" film festival sponsored by the Mowelfund and NCCA. Last February 19, the Cinema Committee opened "Cinema Paraiso" at the NCCA headquarters in Intramuros, which includes an exhibit of cinema objets d'art, artifacts and memorabilia, running all the way to the end of March. Boots teaches broadcast communication at both the Ateneo and De la Salle universities. Even this grueling pursuit, which requires her to prepare lesson plans and check papers, has not stopped her from doing volunteer work with the Philippines Foundation for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled, and the Clean and Green Foundation of former First Lady Amelita Ramos. "It's my way of paying back, not just the industry that has been good to me, but also our society in general, the latter for it's support of my many involvements," says Boots, who, for more than 10 years, worked and lived in the United states. During this interview, Boots was relaxed hostess in a newly-refurbished house near the Morato-Timog area that she shares with a sister and her husband Pete, who come home from the states during winter time. She was a liberation baby of her father, the post-war matinee idol Oscar Moreno, then known as the Robert Taylor of the Philippines, and her intellectual mother, Belen Cristobal, who descended from the scholar Epifanio de los Santos. She was the eldest in the family. "I was born a few days before the Americans arrived in Manila. There was no electricity and there was no anesthesia, and my mother had third degree laceration." Tt Assumption, she had her share of school plays, the glee club, debating and oration, and the school paper. "My roles in plays were usually the men characters, because I was among the tallest in the class." In her senior high year, she was assigned to act as "big sister" to the top freshman section. One of the members of that class was Gloria Macapagal, already a bright girl. "I am flattered that today she calls me Boots with a certain familiarity." She decided that she wanted to enter the convent and talked to tha sisters, hoping they would convince her parents. "Instead, the nun said I should loosen up a bit, follow my parents' advice and go to UP." At first Boots wanted to pursue chemistry, then shifted to AB Sppech and Drama. Expectedly, she acted in Wilfrido MA. Guerrero-directed plays like Federico Garcia Lorca's "Blood Wedding," where she was the leading lady of Jose Mari Velez. At UP, Boots got caught up in the whirlwind of campus activities. She also modeled for Pitoy Moreno and Ben Farrales, and was asked to join beauty contest "but I protested that my statistics were not vital enough!" For classmates she had the likes of Lono Brocka, Behn Cervantes and Kidlat Tahimik. Carlos P. Romulo, then UP President, saw her often, because as president of the UP Woman's Club, she was among those who would welcome dignitaries who visited the campus. No wander then that when the talent scouts of channel 5's "Dance-O-Rama" came looking for the replacement of Baby O'Bien, the university administration recommended Boots. "I was in my senior year. My parents had separated a; ready, so my mother could use the extra income. It's funny that when I received my salary of P600 a month, which was such a big sum considering that I only worked one hour a day, my mother still kept me on allowance at P2 a day." Co-hosting with her in the teen-oriented late afternoon show was Pete Roa, who was also the choreographer and executive producer. At that time, Pete had just broken off with his girlfriend. As destiny would have it, Boots too was nursing a heartache. From a bouquet that they gave to the "Dance-O-Rama" Queen of the Day, Pete would snitch a rose that he would give to Boots. And because he knew that she rushed from her class in Diliman to the Makati studio, he offered her a glass of milk, everyday, without fail. "He was babying me, and to think that I had no father then." By 1964, their relationship had bloomed into something serious, such that even Joe Quirino kidded that Pete should get Boots' chaperones drunk so they could elope. And elope they did. "It was such a funny wedding. The priest decided the occasion needed to be recorded, so he had a photographer called from he neighborhood studio. Then, when it was time to hold hands and we lingered, he would say, "You can stop holding hands now because you have a lifetime to hold hands," By then, Boots had moved on to showbiz, taking off from school without finishing her thesis. Soon, Leah Productions was knocking at her door asking if she could star in "Wanted: Perfect Mother" opposite Dante Rivero. "Wanted: Perfect Mother " would reunite her with Brocka. She would act with Joseph Estrada in a total of seven Erap movies; with the King of Philippine movies, Ronnie Poe, she did around six movies that he himself directed. But as much as the movies took much of her time, Boots never strayed away from emceeing. On television, after "Dance-O-Rama" she also did "magandang Tanghali" and, after Leila Benitez left, "Student Canteen." The government had also noticed how articulate she was, and took her around the country campaigning for family planning along with Pete. Later, the whole family would promote good nutrition for the National Food Authority's "Wasti=ong Pagkain." Awards in public service were forthcoming, with the first Ten Outstanding Women of the New Society (now Ten Outstanding Women in the Nation's Service) recognizing her for her work in the media. It was a select group that included judge Flerida Ruth Romero, nuclear scientist Aida Eugenio, Red Cross stalwart Rosa Rosal, and designer Edwina Koch-Arroyo. When she was getting ready to proceed to New York for a conference with then UN Population Fund top honcho Rafael Salas, Ambassador Kokoy Romualdez offered her a job as the embassy's cultural community officer. Pete left his job as overseas director of Radio Veritas, and the kids had to be taken out of Ateneo and Maryknoll. They sold some belongings and property to raise pocket money. They also had to close a restaurant and a garments business. From 1982 up to 1986, Boots worked for the embassy and held her post for a few more months on a hold-over capacity after the Edsa Revolution. "Then, for the first time in my life, I had to prepare a resume and look for a job," recalls Boots. She had her share of the trials that came with the Pinoy American dream; she became a hotel concierge, a supervisor in a telemarketing outfit, a subscription agent, and a bank secretary. When, in 1993, she had to resign because Pete was raring to come home, she had reached the position of Marketing Officer. Having heard from Pete that Boots was coming home, movie and television productions lost no time sending her feelers. It was more than a warm welcome. In 1996, Premiere Productions put her first in charge of television, and she produced telesines. In 1998, she was helping produce Erap's messages to the different Filipino communities in the US when he asked her to head Channel 13. After Edsa 2 came the offer from ABS-CBN to do the telenovela "Hanggang sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan." After a long break from the movies, she co-starred in the critically-acclaimed "Mano Po." And every Sunday, "Bootstalk" airs over DZMM, where she expounds on issues of concern to one and all. Current issues continue to occupy her as Mowelfund director. The priority is to raise funds, and she is glad that the percentage that Mowelfund gets from the proceeds of the Metro Manila Film Festival has been raised back from the 10 percent that it was slashed down to. Her appointment to the Cinema Evaluation Board makes her "an objective fan of the President, who overlooked political considerations, since I have been identified with Erap, being an old friend and having worked under his administration." Boots finds time to relax with an occasional weekend in Tagaytay with the Roas. All her children are abroad except for one. Pete, as everyone now knows, suffered a stroke that confined him to a wheelchair. "But Pete, because of his love for life, is doing well and is practically independent. He enjoys a weekend of mah-jong with his siblings, while I do my chores as a wife and homemaker. To me, there is always time for everything." The future looks even busier, as this year, Boots hopes to bring, "Pelikula at Lipunan" to Filipino communities abroad, initially in HongKong and Guam, and then LA and San Francisco. "You have to plan things and really prepare," she advises those who would pursue a career in the movies. "It helps that you know where we've been." And in the case of Boots Anson Roa, it's never forgetting the friends you've made along the way.