Memories of "Tour of Luzon"

(Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Recah Trinidad wrote recently about the demise of the premier summer cycling marathon Marlboro Tour, known as Tour of Luzon during our sportswriting days. Former sportswriter and mutual friend Percy Della later replies. Both articles are being carried by the Philippine Post in tribute to the great cycling classic that we read about as a young kid and later wrote about as a young sportswriter with the defunct Daily Express, as well as a tribute to the two great sportswriters -- Recah and Percy -- with whom we shared a lot of summers on the road and gallons of beers. We covered the Tour of Luzon, when it was staged from Tacloban to Laoag to Manila in 1973, and from Manila to Legazpi to Banaue and back to Manila in 1974. It was a memorable and learning experience, one that we will cherish forever. -- Val G. Abelgas)

By Recah Trinidad

The young reporter Percy Della, who has since relocated to California, left his frosty beer glass and walked away to the grassy edge of the barrio farm. He pulled his zipper down, took a pee, gave the sun-beaten vast field one endearing look, then rejoined the group.

“Young loves are born in summer,” he declared, his alert farm-boy’s eyes all lit up.

No, Percy, a wiry native of Cuyapo in Nueva Ecija, did not have to write that line on a piece of paper. Not in his style. But, mind you, the romantic line has remained with us, Ding Marcelo, Al Mendoza, Clyde Mariano and another sports young sports scribe, who all gulped down cold, cold beer under the sahde of a dapdap tree in that eternal Saturday afternoon when her mother had not yet conceived Monica Lewinsky, Philippine cigar had not yet made it to the White House, and toxic terms like uric acid, gout were totally unknown to our lean, sprightly limbs.

This may surprise you but that line Percy D. had mumbled became the binding theme of that carefree beer-guzzling band under the dapdap tree.

“Young loves are born in summer.” Could sound as plain as the anchor line of an Eddie Peregrina song. But it continued to hum and haunt us in the various fields, around Araneta Coliseum, original home of the PSA, at Memorial Cafe, right across the Rizal Stadium on Vito Cruz, when Danny Florencio and Yoyong Martirez were still the flashiest, most glittering stars of the MICAA show, the toasts of the ever-festive, ever excited, basketball-crazy town. We swore by that line in the many summers we joined one another in covering the annual multi-staged bicycle marathon.

Of course, sportswriters much younger than us have proceeded to take over the summer beat. And, hopefully, have also discovered the love in the heat of the noonday sun as they joined the glory chase by bronze-skinned marathon cyclists. This was in the Tour of Luzon, renamed Tour ng Pilipinas, before being known by its commercial tag Marlboro Tour. Yes, the Marlboro Tour. A voyage of rediscovery, year after year after year.
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The obituary was for real. “There will be no Tour --international or local -- this summer and cyclists will have to content themselves with miniscule versions of the event,” the report stated.

“It’s saddening, but sponsors just could not bite at this point because of the economic climate,” lawyer Cornelio Padilla Jr., head of the Professional Cycling Association of the Philippines, bared. He had hoped that, even with the withdrawal of Marlboro, the major sponsor the last 22 years, the 1999 Tour could push through. The Tour was originally scheduled April 18 to May 2.

That was a big blow. Not only to Tour organizers. Oh, you will never know how a big part of a cyclist dies each time a Tour is cancelled. You’ll never know how deeply a simple sports scribe, unkillable and adventurous as that carefree bunch of Al, Percy, Ding, Clyde of many bygone summers, grieve each year the cycling tour, their old love, fails to blast off from the starting line.

It hurts, but, truly, old loves also die in summer.

And from Percy Della:

Thanks for writing about a “young” Percy Della in your column about the death of the revered Tour of Luzon aka Tour ng Pilipinas. I strive to remain young forever -- the thinning hair, the beer belly and the crow’s feet notwithstanding.

Kudos also for mentioning my hometown, Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija, where culture is cultivated and hell is raised, not necessarily in that order. Cuyapo in my youth barely registered on a road map. But in my peripatetic years as a reporter, I made it a point to pass through it more than once.

Time takes its toll. It has decimated our ranks in the press box and has started to set on revered sporting events. Too bad the Tour had to die a slow, commercial death, for truly, it was a flag-waving, feet-stomping Frank Capra film on wheels -- a real spectacle for the masses. I still remember the day my cousins and I jumped the rails like hobos to Rosales, Pangasinan, and, getting there just in time to catch a glimpse of the cyclists bringing up the rear. Ah, that sight was fleeting yet golden.

And as Fate would allow, I ended up covering the Tour with you, Al mendoza, Ding Marcelo, Ernie Gonzales, Eddie Alinea, Jun Engracia, Val Abelgas and the rest of the gang.

Two weeks in the life of a twenty-something is an eon, be it today or in the early 70s. But on the Tour, two weeks is a breeze, really. The days fleet by like the cyclists in a mad dash to the finish line and into the frame of Bob Dungo’s camera. “Finish line Dungo,” we endearingly called the late lensman on the tour.

Oh yes, the video on my mind still whirs like Jolly Riofrir’s Arriflex and more scenes of the fabled tour roll onto the screen. There’s Jesus Garcia Jr. salving pained muscles and exulting in another day of triumph with a yodel and strums of the guitar. There’s the panorama of a grade school room riddled with tired bodies on cots, buri mats, jute bags, etc. -- the calling card of a summer classic that attracts college students, farmers, soldiers, firemen and other intrepid souls pedaling for pesos and the proverbial 15 minutes of fame.

As Beatle George Harrison would sing, “all those years ago” on the Tour enriched our prose to become true practitioners of literature in a hurry. Although we never approximated the brilliance of Teddy benigno “all those years ago” cemented our bond of friendship on and off the sports beat.

I am sorry to hear that they young loves and old loves of our summers of long ago have died. I am sure there’s mourning all over the archipelago.