THAT was the name our editor, Tito Tagle, baptized her with at Sports World—one of the first all-sports publications that came out after martial law in the 1970s. “Celizabeth” was Elizabeth Eraña Celis, long-limbed, pretty, sportswriting female who could write sports, analyze games, comment authoritatively on basketball and mix with the big boys.
It helped that she was the wife of Domingo “Jun” Celis, former Yco Painter, Crispa Redmanizer and later Utex Wrangler in the then reigning basketball league, the Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association or MICAA. But the words, the style and the gumption were all Celizabeth’s.
In those days of censored newspapers and monitored content, sports was the only area of news that enjoyed virtually no holds barred freedom to express. Thus, sports publications like Sports News, Champ, Scoreboard, Sports Weekly Magazine and Sports World all marked their birthdays in that tense-for-many, but good-for-sports martial-law era.
It was in this setting that Beth and I became pals. We had known each other earlier at the College of Mass Communication at the University of the Philippines where she resumed her interrupted college studies long after delivering her three babies, Raymond, Stephanie and Claudine. But we really bonded as colleagues as the one-two female punch of Sports World, a weekly sports newspaper-magazine that could cover all aspects of sports and sports personalities in ways that sports sections of newspapers never could.
She was there first. I followed. At that time women sports writers were oddities in the male-dominated world of sports journalism that was described as a sports-writing fraternity. The only other female writer in the pre-Philippine Basketball Association days was Alice Lopez Lim, more senior than us, but a testament to how good women were in chasing sports stories because even in those conservative times, Alice would be able to crash the dugouts, sending players like Bogs Adornado running for the towel. “Don’t mind me, I’m old enough to be your mother,” she would say. And got away with it.
Our field of three grew in the next decade, with lady scribes like Lily Ramos (now of the Philippine News Agency), Rhea Navarro (aunt of current San Sebastian Stag star Renzo Navarro who now works with the Qatar Basketball Federation) and the late Dina Villena, (first woman sports editor of Pilipino Star Ngayon) swelling our ranks. In the 1990s Jean Malanum, Virgie Romano, the late Celeste Terrenal, Carmela Balbuena and Fe Kagahastian showed that women in sports writing were here to stay. I’m sure Romina Austria and Jasmine Payo plus the many other writers who love to write sports for print and online publications today would agree.
But Beth was the toughest of them all. She never missed a beat. Many of the women who wrote have moved on to other jobs and changed to other fields. Not Beth. Her “In Huddle” column saw many rebirths after Sports World in many other publications that include Tempo, We Forum, Manila Bulletin and till she signed 30, the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
She wrote enthusiastically, unceasingly and called a spade a spade. She loved to tease, intrigue, cajole and sometimes shock. She didn’t mind rocking boats and putting groups or people on the defensive. She was both respected and feared, and she knew it. It was a power she had that made people want to stay in her good graces.
But despite her tough exterior, Beth was a softie. Her Achilles Heel was always and forever, her family. She doted on her kids—and later her grandchildren—even when they became big kids. She opened up opportunities for them, using her friendships and connections to place them. She did that, too, for young scribes and friends in the sports-writing field—and athletes—whom she considered her baby chicks. Many of them thank her for their big break in their careers and Beth was loyal to all of them. The friends she made, she kept, no matter what.
In her last decade, Beth loved to amuse herself by lording it over the cozy group of writers who covered the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). She loved dining out, making chika, laughing with the people who bring the story of the games to their end-users. She traveled a lot, witnessing international competitions and fights, the last of which was Manny Pacquiao’s fight in Macao against Chris Algieri in 2014. Her diabetes was slowing her down, but she always found a way to go anywhere her soul wanted to.
My friendship with Beth extended beyond the sports arena. We were kumares twice over. At one point in our lives, we shared the same doctors. We schemed and gossiped a lot. As young mothers we jogged around their Philamlife, Quezon City park every morning to get the fat off, with Beth carrying her then 1-year-old daughter, Erica, around the course for added weight. We even enjoyed testing the extent of our so-called psychic powers with ESP experiments together.
She loved to throw parties, and could cook well. She had a wicked sense of fun that would send her laughing, nay, cackling when the fall guy discovers he has become the victim of a joke. We had funny names for other people, and for ourselves. I called her Bethany. She called me Tethany. She coined a code name for a jewel-bedecked acquaintance with bad hair and called him Kinky Alajado in private conversations.
That’s the way I’d like to remember Beth: funny, full of ideas, animated, a little bit crazy, but always take-charge. She has certainly left her mark in the field that she pioneered in. You will be greatly missed, Celizabeth.