CHANDA ROMERO: I AM OPEN TO LOVING AND GIVING LOVE
I call her Chanding, my dear friend Chanda Romero whom I got to see in person again when she guested on “Fast Talk with Boy Abunda” a few weeks ago. We lost contact for about 15 years but even if the days won’t allow us to see each other or hear from each other, our hearts never forget. Ours is a kind of friendship that transcends time and space.
Chanding and I can talk about anything without having to worry about crossing boundaries. We shared moments of laughter in joyous times as well as tears of sorrow and pain in the past. It was such a pure delight to see her again.
“That’s probably the way I feel,” she smilingly said of her reason for still looking so good.
I told her I missed her mom, Remedios Romero, because I got some of the most meaningful letters from her. It was just so sad that when she passed on, Chanding couldn’t go home.
“If I could only have wings and fly to Cebu that time,” she ruminated. “What happened to her broke my heart. During the days of COVID, I was trying to warn her because she wanted to go out and see her friends. I said, ‘No, mom, if you’re not careful and something happens, you have comorbidities, it’s going to be a very lonely death.’
“And it was. I wasn’t able to go home and that was so difficult knowing that it was just my brother who was there. We are seven (siblings), but it was him who brought her to the ER and my brother said that when she turned her back, that was the last.”
It was in Cebu where Chanding grew up but fate had led her to come to Manila during her teenage years.
“I was 12 when my father left the family — my mom and us, their seven children. We were living in a place where everybody knew everybody. So, in school — an exclusive school for girls — I was like an outcast because the parents of my classmates would say, ‘Do not associate with her because she’s a product of a broken family’ like you were a leper (who) had this contagious disease.”
Her emotional pain led her to make a hasty decision. “I had to get out of Cebu. I ran away from home. I came to Manila with only 50 bucks not knowing what I was going to do. I quit school when I was in my second year of high school so, what could someone with no high school diploma be doing in Manila? I had no answers to that. I had no plans. I just wanted to get out,” she narrated.
Chanding recalled how Donnie Ramirez became instrumental in her entering showbiz. He introduced her to lawyer Espiridion Laxa, film producer and founder of Tagalog Ilang-Ilang Productions. Donnie was then the PR man of the now-defunct film outfit. Chanding met Donnie during her modeling days in Cebu.
“I made my first six black and white films under Tagalog Ilang Ilang, with Vilma Santos. I remember my first paycheck was 100 pesos and I would have to get the cheque in Avenida. So, sa taxi pa lang, ubos na. I was paid P500 for one film,” she amusingly recalled.
Chanding didn’t expect anything when she came to Manila. “I just lived day after day; no plans just ‘bahala-na-si Batman-kindof-thing.’”
I asked how she was able to win her stature as an actress which Chanding humbly responded, “I think I haven’t gotten to that point (yet) where I can say I won.”
One film critic wrote that Chanding possesses a different kind of presence whenever she’s in front of the cameras.
Until now, Chanding still prefers auditioning for roles despite being one of the country’s greatest actresses “because I don’t want to be complacent. Maybe there is one more step. Maybe there is more space in this room that I can move around,” said Chanding who portrays as the president in the GMA primetime series “Black Rider.”
How does she want to be remembered?
“I want to be remembered as being open. I am open to loving. I am open to giving love. I am open to new learnings. I am open to possibilities.”
During our conversation, Chanding also opened up about her past relationship with the late actor-comedian Bernardo Bernardo who was openly gay. She said that their relationship was different.
“That was different because I think, looking back, that was very special because I loved him as he was. It didn’t matter to me what his sexual preference was but I loved him because it was him.
“I just loved the whole of him although he would really laugh about it, we could laugh about that circumstance, that setup,” Chanding offered.
She also shared that whenever Bernardo found a new crush, she made sure that Bernie got her approval.
“When we were together, it was one of the few times that I knew it was really love between the both of us. And it was taboo. We were just so unafraid and so proud of having found each other. We were both happy,” said Chanding of her relationship with Bernardo who passed on in 2018 due to a tumor in his pancreas.
On the personal front, Chanding is the happy wife of Jose Mari Alejandrino whom she married in 2013.
Veteran actress Chanda Romero grew up in Cebu, but fate had other plans for her. Donnie Ramirez, the PR man of Tagalog Ilang-Ilang Productions, introduced her to its film producer and founder, lawyer Espiridion Laxa. Today, despite being one of the country’s greatest actresses, she still prefers auditioning for roles ‘because I don’t want to be complacent.’