"Bon" in French means good. "Bon" could have also come from the Latin "bon(um)" which means the same thing. But Fernando Bogtong Bon’s tragic end in last Friday night’s bus bomb explosion in Balintawak, Quezon City was anything but lucky.
Bon and another yet unidentified victim were both at the rear seat of the ill-fated Golden Highway Transit Bus. No 71 when a terrorist bomb exploded right inside the Novaliches-bound passenger bus, leaving a haze of black smoke, a trail of bloodied bodies, and a crazy mix of shattered glass and twisted metal.
The bus, now a grotesque skeleton of one, made the daily trip from Alabang to Novaliches and back, sunrise to sundown.
Bon’s family could hardly recover from the shock of seeing the young man’s body ripped apart by the blast, when the reality of another tragedy hovered – the P40,000 Prudential Funeral Homes is asking them to shell out for the funeral service.
As Bon’s body lay unclaimed at the morgue waiting for a respectable coffin and a decent memorial service, a nation hurting from a series of fatal bomb attacks paused to reflect: indeed, when evil strikes, the innocents always pay with their blood.
Fernando, 19, the second of five siblings, was fondly called "Dhen" by relatives and friends. Outside of his family circle, no one knew that his life was already a series of misfortunes even before his life was rudely cut short by a terrorist bomb.
A native of a remote and obscure village in Ocampo, Camarines Sur, Dhen arrived in the big city last September, armed with diploma in refrigeration and air-conditioning from the Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges.
He wanted to try his luck in the big city and seek employment at the Time Product Garments (TPG) where his elder brother Fredie, 21, and younger brother Angelo, 18, also work.
This was less than a month after their father, Ponciano Bon, 39, died from a mysterious illness allegedly due to medical malpractice. The elder Bon, recounted the family, died after an unnamed medication was injected intravenously by an identified nurse in a Bicol hospital. To pursue the case in court, the family was required by the NBI to have the body autopsied, but the desperate family neither had cash nor connections to seek justice.
Dhen’s brother Ferdie disclosed that this was the reason Dhen was so persevering. "He wanted to work abroad. He wanted a good life for us," he said.