Ex-Tour champ dies in mishap

Romeo Bonzo, the first rookie winner of the fabled Marlboro Tour in 1983, was killed in a vehicular accident in his hometown of Sual in Pangasinan yesterday.

Sual Police Chief Inspector Rolando Quejado told The STAR that Bonzo was hit, while riding his motorcycle, by a speeding van at around 10:15 a.m. along Barangay Poblacion in Sual.

According to his elder brother Modesto, the 1976 Tour champion, Bonzo expired while being rushed to the hospital.

Moises Moyano, the driver of the Delica van with plate No. RDK 280, surrendered to the police. Bonzo’s relatives said Moyano, 27, did not intend to escape and even helped bring the former champion to the Trauma Hospital in Dagupan City.

Bonzo, 48, left behind wife Clarita Sison Bonzo of Labrador town and five children, including the promising junior rider Mark Julius. He was to act as chief marshal in a cycling event in Villasis, Pangasinan on Jan. 24.

The sixth in a brood of eight, Bonzo enlisted in the Philippine Army but later availed himself of an optional retirement with a rank of technical sergeant. While with the army, Bonzo also occasionally donned the national colors. Their youngest brother, Noel, also rode the 1994 Marlboro Tour.

Bonzo is the third former Tour champion to die in a vehicular accident. In the mid-1980s, Jacinto Sicam was killed also while riding his motorcycle in his hometown of Binalonan, Pangasinan. In the mid-1990s, Manuel Buenaventura, the 1990 winner, was sideswiped by a bus at the EDSA underpass in Cubao. — Eva Visperas