fullman*

From Section 10 it became Section 2.7. And so finally that morning, after a long delay, we found ourselves right in the middle of the Bureaucracy, going over a Memorandum of Agreement (“henceforth referred to as MOA”), some preambulatory clauses, pertinent provisions, and a litany of technical terms.

I was with E. and N., leaders of an organization of Filipinos with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) that has been providing support to positive Pinoys. They were about to lose their office this year due to lack of funding, and since 2006 they’ve been trying to get the Department of Health to provide a little office space in one of its facilities for free. Their appeal went through a complete bureaucratic life cycle – it was approved in principle, was referred to several public health agencies and facilities, was suddenly denied, and was being re-considered. When Akbayan heard of the case, we brought it up in a congressional hearing, finally compelling the Department of Health to see if there’s a spare room that the organization could use. It was decided that a hospital in Manila would host the organization for the meantime.

There we were, me, E. and N. negotiating with a team of doctors and hospital personnel. The doctors wanted to know the furniture that the group would bring, while the hospital administrator computed how much power each appliance – an old computer, a water dispenser, etc. – would consume. The hospital would not be responsible for any equipment that they might lose, and they were advised not to keep anything expensive in the office.

Revisions were proposed, amendments stricken down. Technicalities can be numbing. Right before the meeting, I was still smarting over the fact that a simple request had to be raised in a congressional inquiry to get a government agency to act on it. But even that dissipated as we went through the provisions: I was, for that moment, a mere government employee helping refine a legal document.

Until one doctor suggested that we should include ‘significant other’.

She was referring to Section 2.7, which states that the organization “shall coordinate with families of dying clients” and help refer funeral homes that are accredited and trained in handling HIV/AIDS cases.

Everyone agreed. The doctor explained that there have been cases where families would refuse to claim the body of a dead AIDS patient. The hospital, one of the few public healthcare facilities that specializes in infectious diseases, has no refrigerator; it is severely, embarrassingly underfunded. The body can only be kept for 12 hours, and after that it has to be disposed.

Even in death, despite its absoluteness, some of us are denied of decency.

And if there is no ‘significant other’, who claims the body?

“We pass the hat,” they said. The organization would solicit money from other NGOs. The doctors, underpaid as they are, would also contribute. Their condition may be revolting, and yet they would pool whatever they have just to give a lost friend, a lost acquaintance, a decent burial. I couldn’t help but be moved by this sense of humanity.

Section 2.7 was amended to include ‘significant other/s’ and ‘NGOs’. We discussed the other provisions and assigned someone to finalize the document. We later went to the room that would house the organization for the next few months, until a more suitable arrangement could be found. We went to the ward handling HIV/AIDS cases (the director could not even use her own room because the roof is leaking), and later I visited the organization’s current office to meet some of its members and clients, most of whom are MSMs (men who have sex with men).

For many of them, life indeed goes on. We talked about their jobs, about love, and how fattening and perfectly irresistible a piece of greased pork chop is. About why some of them don’t want to take ARVs, about guys. It is silly how we have blamed a virus for so much, when in truth the act of dehumanization can only be committed by conscious beings – a virus is just a virus. It may sound silly, but this, too, is true: that resisting the virus and its stigma is a celebration of life, that we are each other’s significant other after all.