Holy Smokes

“Buhay pa ba ang taong iyan (Is this person still alive)?” The aghast radiologists at the Makati Medical Center commented, first upon seeing the chest x-rays of 1950s matinee idol Oscar Moreno, and later, those of television host Pete Roa. These important men in actress Boots Anson-Roa’s life—her father, then her husband—both lost their lives to the vicious vice and killer of modern times, tobacco. Her mother, tired of inhaling her husband’s secondhand smoke and unable to convince him to stop, also took up the habit with the same dire consequences.
So Boots may be called not only a Cigaret Widow (a title bestowed on her by journalist Barbara Mae Dacanay at the recent seminar “Glamour, Smoke and Mirrors:Women, Media and Tobacco at the Boracay Tropics), she is also a Cigaret Orphan.
Pete Roa became an anti-smoking advocate at a late stage when his life was ebbing. Boots recalled he never took his illnesses against God and always admitted, “I brought this upon myself.”
The widow has embraced the cause of anti-smoking. Her son-in-law, Rep. Robbie Puno of Antipolo City, is also doing his part in Congress to help pass a bill that would strengthen the anti-tobacco law, using Pete’s illness and death to bolster his position. Photo by Sinag de Leon-Amado