Blood brother helps Ukraine

“Hello we are a group of friends from Madrid, Spain that are doing arrangements to fill a bus with medicines and food to send to the border of Ukraine with Poland. On the way back, we will bring refugees (mothers, children and elderly people) with family in Spain that can accommodate them. We are not part of a political group or religion.”

This was the innocuous social media post of Bernardo Trigo Bonnin, a Filipino musician based in Madrid, four days ago. BG, as he is known to family and friends, graduated from La Salle Greenhills before completing his studies at Universidad de Sevilla in 2001. He is related to the Bonnins of the local film industry. This hero was also my first blood brother.

From 1990 to 1992, this writer was executive producer of Vintage Enterprises’ broadcasts of the Philippine Basketball Association. Back then, the games were played at the ULTRA in Pasig three times a week, when the PBA reached its ratings peak. It was there that I was approached by his family. BG, then a teenager, had contracted dengue, and needed negative type blood for surgery, in case of any internal bleeding. Being O-, I gladly donated, and even went to meet the cheerful young man in the hospital. I’m grateful that he put me on the path to becoming a regular blood donor since then. He changed my life. It was literally more than two decades before I reconnected with his sister Pilar (a renowned photographer), his brother Takuri (a security officer in Glasgow), and BG himself.

It what was surely a Herculean effort, in a few days, BG’s GoFundMe account and private donors had quickly raised enough money to fill a bus with fruit, basic medicines and other supplies. BG and his friends made the non-stop trek of thousands of kilometers to the Ukrainian border, which was not a safe journey that took more than a full day. They first picked up 39 refugees at the border, and another 16 in Krakow, Poland. BG shared all of their progress on social media. Of the 55 they rescued, 23 are minors who are 16 years and below, separated from their fathers who stayed behind to defend their country.

“BG,  please be careful.  I am beyond words at how proud I am of you,” said Pilar on her social media account. “Good luck to you and your friends on this journey.  I love you.”

On Thursday night, this writer sent a message of congratulations to this brave man for his selfless act.

“Thank you so much, Bill. I’m just paying it forward” was his simple reply from the bus, with still over 6,000 kilometers to go before he would be back in Madrid. BG quietly cracked open a celebratory beer, safely on the way home.

This proves that God’s greatest warriors don’t use weapons, but instead a courageous heart and a helping hand.