When health experts warned that the face of HIV/AIDS in the Philippines is changing, I didn’t expect that it’ll be all too familiar. They said that it is on the rise, that it doubled from 2007 to 2009, that most of the new cases have been acquired through homosexual and bisexual contact, and that the prevalence in some cities in the country have reached epidemic proportions already.
Last month, five new cases of HIV infection were reported everyday, four of which are considered MSM, or men who have sex with other men. A decade ago, Sarah Jane Salazar, Dolzura Cortez, and a member of PinoyPlus who spoke in a safer sex training that we had – those were only faces of people living with HIV/AIDS that I knew.
Four out of five. A friend passed away due to AIDS-related complications a few weeks ago. He was about my age, and tested positive last January. He didn’t want anyone to know, so he went to a province to see an albularyo. A matter between life and death, but he chose quackery over treatment that could have extended his life.
And it was a decision that leaves you dry – you get it, you understand why he did it and what drove him to it, and yet it’s confounding. It’s maddeningly confounding. It’s like when you hear of that story about mothers who wash used condoms so they can be re-used. Or that kid in Indonesia who is happily smoking a cigarette. Maddeningly incomprehensible, and exasperatingly explainable.
His family said that he died of pneumonia. Most of his friends were told that it was dengue that did him.
Four out of five. I’ve been giving out the contact details of a support group for Filipinos living with HIV/AIDS – before to friends of friends, but now to close friends. HIV is not a death sentence, and I am lucky to be surrounded by close friends who share that message.
I don’t mean to sow panic, because panic combined with lack of awareness would only push more to quackery. You don’t case studies or numbers to understand that – just listen to a frothing Bishop.
But I want you to know that the trend is alarming. And the first step that we all should take is to acknowledge the writing on the wall.
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Go to TLF Share’s Facebook page to get updates on HIV/AIDS among men who have sex with men in the Philippines.
