For Jon Santos, A Life on Stage Is a Life Well-Lived

Over four decades, Jon Santos has known the assignment: make the audience fall for the characters you play, tell a great story, help them find sweet relief. 

Jon Santos is feeling it. 

“Sinabi ko naman callos for lunch hindi fabada!” the comedian shouts. Wearing full dandy for his first Vogue Philippines shoot, he is sitting on antique furniture inside MiraNila Heritage House, whose interiors inspire a bygone era of jazz parties and Manila High Society. His impromptu bellowing is met with laughter, prompting another. “Sinabi ko naman ’pag pinalitan yung tuwalya sa banyo, palitan din yung tiles!” he says, raising his eyebrows and dramatically clutching the wooden cane handed to him. More laughter echoes throughout the home. 

The sprawling property along Mariposa Street in Quezon City was built in 1929, a full decade before QC was declared a city. It has hosted Philippine Presidents and members of Congress over decades. The location seems fitting for Santos, whose smorgasbord of impersonations has included a handful of politicos. He’s played satirical versions of Cory Aquino, Erap Estrada, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Juan Flavier, Rodrigo Duterte, Donald Trump. These alongside caricatures of other public figures like Vilma Santos, Kris Aquino, Catriona Gray. 

But beyond that, Jon is a fully formed comedic artist and performer, and a consummate storyteller, with his stories told through drag, punchlines, jukebox musicals, lounge acts, recipes, science lessons, lampoon, and farce. 

Santos has done mainstream fare like the 1990 Tony Reyes film Tangga and Chos with Joey de Leon, a play on the American comedy Tango and Cash. He has become everything from a house to a plant, trying to teach kids science in the educational program Sineskwela. He’s indulged his Kapampangan blood in Sarap TV, a cooking show where guests and hosts swap stories over making dishes. This month, Santos returns to the stage in two productions at the Power Mac Center Spotlight Black Box Theater: Bawa’t Bonggang Bagay, a Filipino translation of Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe’s Every Brilliant Thing; and a staging of Bill Russell and Henry Krieger’s Side Show The Musical. And, of course, he is a judge in Drag Race Philippines, the hit local version of the massive global franchise.

Santos realized he had a knack for impersonation early on, growing up in Cubao and studying at Marist School Marikina. “A lot of us do start at the class clown stage. Yung ’pag hindi nakatingin yung teacher, you’re the one who can copy how he or she walks. Si sister ganito, si brother ganito talks this way or walks this way, or talks about this and that,” he shares. Marist only had male students, and Jon says he, being “maputi and… not so like other boys,” would often get picked to play the female roles in stories and sketches of school productions. “So drag happened very early.”   

Jon did more theater when he studied at the University of the Philippines (UP). He majored in Economics, a course more aligned with his family, which was mostly made up of engineers, architects, and soldiers. They didn’t know what to make of Jon’s predilections for the stage and thought that it wouldn’t go beyond school. “They didn’t know that I was going to crossover to doing this as a profession. Pero nahila-hila,” he says. After graduating, his friends from the UP Repertory Company, which was open to non-theater and non-speech majors like him, started finding work and he would join them. His batchmates included late production greats like Deo Endrinal and Floy Quintos. “They would ask us if we wanted to do gigs as an assistant writer, or a sketch here and there for a show they were doing on channel 7.”

When the Marcoses left the country after the EDSA Revolution in 1986, Santos says that it allowed comedy to flourish. “Stand up became very big after Marcos Sr. left. There was a little more freedom to do political satire. The APO shows. The Kuh Ledesma shows. The Willie Nepomuceno and Tessie Tomas shows were popular.”

Santos actually credits a lot of his growth and gumption as a comedic performer and an impersonator to Nepomuceno and Tomas. “They were very open to having working students be part of their shows,” Jon says. “They were not selfish at all. The generosity coming from them. They never closed the door. They never made a barrier to entry.” 

Their mentoring was thorough. “Inside out. ’Pag internal Tessie. ’Pag external Willie. Beyond his talent fee, he would spend more just to look the part,” Jon elaborates. Tessie, on the other hand, would really dig deep and find the parallels between her and the character, making them human beings, not just names on the front page of news. “I think they found joy,” he says. “’Di ba kapag nakatanggap ka, happiness, ’pag nagbigay ka, it’s joy. They found joy in seeing their wisdom put to good use. I think they saw me also pay it forward.”

As the years passed, Santos became even closer to Tomas, a fellow UP alumni who was already a comic superstar by the time they met. Often in his impromptu cafeteria performances, a teenage Jon would play her many characters in the now defunct sketch show Champoy, including the hilarious weather forecaster Amanda Pineda. He found her comedy cerebral. “It was a standup comic not falling on her face. She was glamorous. She was not slipping on a banana peel. For me, I found it really, really refreshing in Pinoy TV. And I would try to record and transcribe her pieces and play them in school,” he shares. When Tomas visited UP for a speaking engagement, his classmates egged him to do his impressions of her to her face when he asked for an autograph. “They said, ‘Miss Tessie, Miss Tessie, ginagaya ka niyan.’ So I was a pirated Tessie Tomas in school.” 

It was Tessie who convinced him to hold off on a stint teaching high school economics to give his comedy a shot. “I was encouraged talaga to wait one year after graduation before getting a real nine-to-five job,” he says. “Sabi ni Tessie, ‘try your characters, try putting together your own repertoire. And just give it a year.’” When he finally had his first solo show in Makati in ’88, Tomas was there and even presented him with a bouquet up on stage. “I thought, ‘Are people really that un-selfish?’ And part of the show, I was using her stuff. But I was playing her. I was playing her playing Imelda. I was playing her playing Bonnie Bedelia. I set it up as a tribute to her,” he shares. “Walang kadamot-damot. And naging kaibigan ako ng anak niya, si Robin. My spouse and her spouse are also friends. Parang pamilya.”

And like family, Tessie was there for him through his many ups and downs. “I found sobriety through her. It was her mentorship that had me consider Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve been sober for 20 years. All Tessie ‘yan. Nanay-nanayan talaga siya in many ways. I saw the need to sober up because of her wise words. I saw the need to save, bukod sa sarili kong magulang na very wise din naman. She was such a good example.”

It was also through Tessie that Jon met his husband, the businessman West Stewart, in a dinner at her house 20 years ago. 

“Oh I thought he was quite interesting. A little crazy. But we hit it off quite well,” West recalls. “We began the relationship that particular evening. I think basically we’ve been together ever since.” Jon interjects, jokingly: “Across a crowded room. Full of beautiful people. Far more beautiful than us. The eyes met. The rest is chemistry.”

 Stewart says that, apart from his daily bag of puns, he loved Santos’ steadfast dedication to his craft. “He’s always been really good with a new project, a new way to go about doing his business. He takes challenges and makes them work.” West remembers a show, For Voter or For Worse, back in 2010 in a run up to the presidential elections. Jon was supposed to play Mar Roxas, but Mar stepped down and gave way to Noynoy Aquino around a week before the show was set to go live. (“Tumiklop yung tuhod ko sa dami ng ire-rewrite ko. Pero umabot,” Jon recalls.)

“He was really quite good in the whole show, so much that it ran for nearly 110 performances,” West says. “It went extremely well, and sold out nearly every night. He got a lot of good feedback from Korina Sanchez, who he was playing in the show. When she saw herself up there, she said she needed to have her jaw rewired because she was laughing so hard.” 

Through decades, Jon said he has seen his audience evolve. While there are still a lot from his generation who have stayed with him from the end of Martial Law, through his solo shows and tours abroad, he is perpetually and delightfully surprised by the younger ones who recognize him now. “At one dinner with UP classmates, someone told me, ‘You know, my children don’t know you. But my grandchildren, who watch Drag Race, do.’  

The show found Jon near the end of the COVID pandemic, when he was away from the country, and feeling a little lost as many of us were back then. “I was waiting for clearance to fly back to the Philippines when I got a call from the two brains behind Drag Race Philippines, Yanah Laurel and Alex Godinez-Lopez.” They laid out to him the exciting plans of having the franchise come here. “I was happy to share, but also very, very worried of being redundant or unhelpful. I was worried about not delivering the edge that I think Drag Race is also known for. I didn’t know that they also wanted heart. They wanted survivorism. They wanted experience,” he says. 

In August of 2022, the show debuted with Paolo Ballesteros as host and Santos as one of the judges in rotation. While his fellow judges might have looked at different things (the fashion, the makeup), Jon was mostly interested in wit, a sense of humor, performance, and storytelling of the drag queens competing. “At some point, it comes in handy when you do know that when you do a wig reveal and wig number one comes off to reveal wig number two, which was under wig number one, it would be flattened,” he says. “From the practical to the profound, I was able to share.”

But he was also surprised that he was learning from the queens as much as they said they were learning from him. “It’s like an exchange of best practices. They have so much wisdom at a very young age. It also took me by surprise when somebody said I went into this because I know someone like you. And I found fulfillment in it,” he says. “Everything fell into place. It’s a good team. And hopefully more to come in the years to come,” he says. “I think Pinoy drag is in good hands. And legs. And hearts.”

In between layouts, Jon would feel the material of what he is wearing. The fashion thesis of the shoot is based on dandyism, with clothes from Rajo Laurel and Francis Libiran, among others. “I like the fact that dandy is an attitude. It is a commitment to being bold and deliberate, excellent and refined. I’m glad that expensive doesn’t always have to be part of the template, especially now that a lot of dandyism we read about it as an attitude from another century. A lot of inherited pieces, Lolo’s cane, the ring of a parent, the suitcases of your Lola when she first went traveling,” he shares.  

The clothes reminded him of a time he stumbled upon a coat of his father’s while he was rummaging through his closet. “He said, ‘Oh this is my one and only from my early days as a young executive.’ ’Pag tingin ko sa loob, uy, Yves Saint Laurent,” he remembers. “It’s nice when you know a person who did not buy something because of a label. I think he liked the fit. And fortunately we were the same size.” The piece is houndstooth, with little touches of olive, navy, gray, and khaki, and has become part of his wardrobe for a long time, paired with almost everything and anything. “It’s very special to me kasi nga storyteller. I like clothes that have stories.”

It was a different matter, however, when his mother found out that, in early high school, he was wearing things from her closet. Somehow, he knew how to work her cabinets and one of her wigs from the ’70s made it on top of his head. “Eventually, she discovered that it has found its way into my tool kit and that it has paid for itself.” 

While they had misgivings about his chosen craft and profession, Jon says that they eventually crossed over from worried parents to loyal supporters. “It took a while. Because no parent would be automatically encouraging of an uncertain actor’s life. I come from a family of engineers and soldiers. No one worked in media and the performing arts or the humanities.” They worried if he would be able to make a living out of his creative pursuits. 

But by his first curtain call as a working adult, he felt things fell into place and his family was on board. “It also applied to me and my life choices. They were also worried: will he be happy? Will he find someone? Will he manage to navigate around cruelty? Will he be alone?” he says. “In the end, their love was bigger than their questions. And the universe took over.”

He wonders similarly whenever he does drag on stage or whenever Drag Race airs. “I’m very curious to what this does to members outside of the LGBTQIA who are parents. And I would like to think that we have an effect also on a father or a mother who wonders, ‘Will my child be happy on this journey?’ I think he or she will be okay when they hear our stories.” 

Dance of comedy

The lineup of Santos’ shows have also changed over the years. Before, it would be character after character after character, an endless train of accents and affectations, prosthetic tummies, wigs, and fake ears. But over time, he devoted more time out of his cabaret to just himself. “I would end the show naman as me, doing the standup that I really, really like. ’Yung nakikita mo na microphone lang, a blazer, a spotlight, and a point of view.” 

As a comic, Jon says he doesn’t have an agenda. “Most of the time, drag is political. Or you see people like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel and you really count how much a punchline is geared toward a person. Ako ang aga-aga ko natutunan to be an equal opportunity offender,” he says. “Binibilang namin, o ilan ang Noy, ilan ang Gloring, ilan ang Binay? Pantay na pantay. Hindi ako nakikitaan ng kulay. Eh ako nga minsan hindi ko alam ang aking color. Because I see everybody as imperfect.”

To him, a performance is a dance with the audience; sometimes you take them by the hand, sometimes they take yours. “You have to know what the viewers want so you can rein them in. Ano ba laman ng dyaryo? What can you say about China, Tariff, Filipinos mourning the loss of a beloved pope, presyo ng bigas. The assault of all these kandidatos who want our votes. Aalamin mo what the viewers want and you reign them in,” he says. “Minsan hindi ko gusto pero ’yun ’yung laman ng balita eh. You sway when you’re going toward them. ’Yun ’yung they take you by the hand, ‘Ito ang gusto namin, ito yung kilala namin, ito ang laman ng balita, gagawin mo yan.”  

But at the same time, you sway the audience your way, to your lens and the topics and people you are interested in. “Mental health, love of country, pagmamahal sa pamilya, love wins…I don’t think agenda ’yun eh. [They’re] truths. Stories I’d like to tell.” It’s almost always a customized experience. “I think that’s how I would describe that waltz: I’ll give you what you want. I’ll let you experience what I’d like to share. I’ll give in to anong mood niyo, anong taste niyo but I’ll let you experience it my way.” 

But what makes the Filipino laugh? Jon suspects its one-upmanship against an oppressor. “’Pag nakakaganti sa mga nangaapi. Hindi naman nabago ’yun since pinagtatawanan natin si Donya Victorina,” he says, referring to the character in Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere. “Sa mundo ko, in my journey, ang nakikita ko na nagiging durable is ’yung punchlines against people who are in power, who are in authority. Parang ‘Apihin mo ako kung gusto mo. Pero ipa-punchline kita para patas tayo. Kaya mo mangurakot, kaya mo mang-api, kaya mo maging sakim, pero wala kang takas sa mga paandar namin.’ Kasi minsan yun na lang ang pang-cope namin.”

There is also the saying, “comedy is tragedy plus time.” “Minsan ’pag masakit pa, hindi mo pa matawanan sa sobrang sakit. Pero ’pag kaya ko nang tawanan, hindi na siguro ganon ka-tragic, baka naghe-heal na ako.”

He likens the situation to The Emperor’s New Clothes. “The comedy is the little boy who said the emperor was naked. Sinasabi niya ’yung iniisip ng lahat na lang hindi masabi-sabi because of fear or because hindi sila artista. Merong relief in, ‘Oh my gosh, somebody said it.’ Na, ‘Oo nga, buti nga sinabi na ganito pala siya, ganito siya kumilos. Ganito ang katotohanan.’ And there is relief in truth telling. ‘Alam naman nila. Nakita naman nila. Puri pa rin sila nang puri. Hayan sinabi nung bata. Bago sila nagsabi ng, ‘Ah oo, mag-aminan na tayo.’ The Emperor was naked.” 

He also quotes Tessie’s Champoy co-star Mich Valdez who says we laugh “to keep us from killing ourselves and each other.” “There’s this saying, ‘I laugh because I must not cry.’ Tatawanan ko na lang ito, kung hindi i-iiyak ko ito. At ’pag hindi ko kinaya, anong gagawin ko sa sarili ko. Baka mabuang ako. Tatawanan ko na lang muna.”

But Santos remains hopeful. “I think someday, libre lang naman mangarap, someday sana talaga magbago ’yung social condition para magbago ’yung buhay, pati ’yung art natin mage-evolve. Pati yung mga tatawanan natin mage-evolve.” 

And he is entirely optimistic about the Filipino comedy scene, describing it as alive and well, and all over the place. “It’s in your phone. It’s in the bookstore. It’s on Netflix. It’s in big and small theaters from QC to Makati. It’s in Bacolod. It’s in Cebu. There are improv groups na nagkaroon ako ng chance to visit with Tessie. There are groups in Bacolod, trained by Peque Gallaga,” he says. “It is, of course, always going to be a reflection of the life we’re living. So the topics, the forms, it is going to be a reflection of the state our country is in, our culture is in. And it’s here to stay I think.” 

For one of Vogue Philippines’ layouts, he was paired with the dog of the Benitez family, who owns and runs MiraNila. This prompted a story from Jon of his own dog Cookie, and the troubles that he went through last year when his mom fell ill and West had cancer and heart problems. 

“Naku ayun talaga yung role of a lifetime: asawa at ulirang anak,” he shares, painting a picture of him at the hospital, waiting patiently for the advice of the doctors as West went through surgeries. He says that Cookie mimicked West’s illnesses and passed away just before they left for the States for another round of operations. “Many people believe that they mimic the illness and take it with them to spare the parent. I’d like to believe it.” 

He stops, seemingly remembering his character for the day and that enough time has passed for tragedy to circle back to comedy. 

“Her name was Cookie Roxas Delgado y Las Sietes Bertudes Claudia Bermudez Perez de Pellar Nata de Coco Pastillas de Leche Pescada Escabeche Con Todo Cheche Bureche de la Familia de Leon Marca De Leon Saite de Oliva ex de Birhen Surbaran Instruccion Tayuman Lardizzabal Manuela Cainta Gobernor Forbes,” he rattles off in one breath. “Transcribe that!” 

By JACS T. SAMPAYAN. Photographs by MARK NICDAO. Deputy Editor PAM QUIÑONES. Beauty Editor JOYCE OREÑA. Styling by NEIL DE GUZMAN. Media Channels Editor and Executive Producer: Anz Hizon. Multimedia Artist: Mcaine Carlos. Producer: Julian Rodriguez. Hair: Mong Amado. Makeup: Pam Robes. Senior Lighting Technician: Villie James Bautista. Photo Assistants: Arsan Sulser Hofileña, Crisaldo Soco. Photo File Manager: John Philip Nicdao. Videographer: MV Isip. Videographer’s Team: Favour Ajah. Production Design: AdSet. Assistant Production Designer: Bojo Tarroja. Production Design Setmen: Reggie Alcayde, Vincent Salvante, Romy Dela Cruz, John Nabor. Nails: Extraordinail.

Shot on location at MiraNila Heritage House & Library, with special thanks to MiraNamin Nest, The Nest by the Sea, and The Dogs by the Sea.

For more information, visit Facebook pages MiraNila Heritage House & Library, MiraNila Heritage House Events, or MiraNamin Nest.