Paquito Rivas stands as the third Visayan national tour champion since the dawn of modern age in Philippine road racing in 1955. Rivas is also celebrated as the first Visayan rider to capture a national overall victory since the great revival of the Tour of Luzon in 1973.
A proud former member of the Visayan and AFP-GHQ cycling team, Sgt Rivas was a definitive “marquee name” since debuting in the 1973 Tour of Luzon.
Paquito Rivas was the “real McCoy”—consistently dominating the grueling Burgos-to-Baguio ITT laps in 1973, 1974, 1976 and 1977, thus earning him the moniker: “Eagle of the Mountain.”
For a time, he was known as the sport’s “heartbreak kid” due to series of agonizing near-miss victories, like in the 1974—where he suffered 5 mechanical issues which cost him his yellow jersey; in the 1975 Tour of Luzon, he lost a razor-thin 34.9-second margin to Pangasinan stalwart Samson Etrata—one of the slimmest deficits in history—in the 1976 Tour of Luzon, second to another Pangasinan neo-pro powerhouse champion, Modesto Bonzo.
Later, in Tour ng Pilipinas 1977, he endured a staggering 8 tire blowouts, leaving him just adrift of 3 minutes and 7.6 seconds to his archrival Manuel “Maui” Reynante in the final General Classification.
Yet, despite years of struggles, Rivas’ resolve never wavered. Acting with sweet revenge, he ultimately claimed his crowning glory by clinching the 1979 Marlboro Tour, painfully finishing the inaugural Marlboro Tour despite suffering from a painful road rash. Thus, the pride of Laoang, Northern Samar, Rivas became the second national tour champion to win a tour overall without winning a single lap, repeating the rare feat of Pangasinan’s Gonzalo Recodos in the 1963 Tour of Luzon.
Following his illustrious cycling career on the saddle, Rivas, a landmark figure, remained a pillar of the sport, serving as the Marlboro Tour Race Director General, the Le Tour de Filipinas Race Manager and a member of the PhilCycling Board of Trustees.
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