In
less than four weeks, the Philippines is likely to set a new and disturbing
record: For the first time, the number of new HIV-infected individuals will top
3,000 in a single year.
This alarming total is twice that of the
number of new HIV cases recorded only two years ago—and Alberto Romualdez,
health secretary during the the previous Joseph Estrada administration, thinks
he knows why:
“Unfortunately, we changed leaderships in
2001, and the new [administration] under the influence of the Church put an
embargo on the procurement of [reproductive health] supplies by the national
government,” Romualdez told reporters on the sidelines of a Senate forum the
other day. The ban applied to one of the more effective protections against HIV
protection and the spread of AIDS: the simple condom.
“That’s the connection. It was in 2001 when
the procurement stopped, so the government was not able to [restock] the
products that were being phased out by USAID and other donors. In 2006, when
the supplies finally ran out, the incidence of HIV began to climb.”
These are loaded words; does Romualdez have
the supporting data? The monthly disease surveillance reports of the Department
of Health, the latest of which brings the data up to October 2012, suggest that
Romualdez is in fact on to something.
In the first half of the Gloria Arroyo
presidency, the number of HIV cases rose only slightly from year to year: from
174 in 2001 to 210 in 2005. The year 2006 saw a big jump of about 50 per cent,
to 309. And then the dam broke: 342 in 2007, then up 54 per cent to 528 cases
in 2008, up 58 per cent to 835 in 2009, up a staggering 90 per cent to 1,591
HIV cases in 2010.
To be sure, the Benigno Aquino administration
took over in the middle of 2010, and the record of the last two years has been
disappointing. The growth rate has slowed down considerably, but in absolute
terms the numbers remain dismal. Last year, the annual total of new HIV
patients rose 47 per cent to 2,349; this year, at the rate new cases are
recorded every month, the full total may reach 3,200 or so—an increase of about
36 per cent.
All of which beg the question: Is this the
new normal? Even if the Department of Health (DOH) manages to stabilise the
alarming growth rate in new infections, has the HIV situation in the country
reached a tipping point? Even if the restocked RH supplies reach more and more
Filipinos at risk, we may still be looking at 2,000 to 3,000 new HIV-infected
individuals every year.
“The purchase order [for condoms] …. was
stopped because of pressure from the Church,” Romualdez has said. This
assertion needs to be verified, but the reality is, Church opposition to
contraceptives is no secret. After its legitimacy crisis erupted in 2005, the
Arroyo administration deliberately courted the support of the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of the Philippines by moving heaven and earth on the two social issues
dearest to the CBCP: the death penalty and reproductive health. The real
surprise would be if Arroyo did not succumb to pressure from the bishops.
But the DOH statistics should prompt the
leaders of the Catholic Church to examine their conscience, and to review their
position on the vexing issue of HIV and AIDS.
The numbers clearly show that the Church’s
view on condoms, as symbolic of a pernicious “contraceptive mentality”, as a
policy measure that would only encourage promiscuity and even greater moral
irresponsibility, has real-world consequences.
Unless the leaders of the Church are prepared
to question the validity itself of the DOH statistics, they should humbly
accept the unavoidable conclusion that the no-condom policy they favour has put
more Filipino lives—thousands more every year—at great risk. Christian duty
requires nothing less.
This is not to say that the statistics have
made the issue less complicated. On the contrary, very personal (and therefore
moral) reasons explain the explosion in HIV cases. But the role of a truly
compassionate Church is not to pass judgement or to add to the ranks of the
vulnerable; it is to care for the sick, and lessen their suffering.
Editorial
Desk
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