December 2, 2004. The week past vied for " the most horrible" since Pinatubo. Floods ravage Aurora, Real and Infanta burying hundreds in mud. On this, the eve of the women's celebration of World AIDS Day, ferocious winds lashes out at everything in sight. TV and Radio warnings Blared: Stay at Home! Typhoon Yoyong can be dangerous! Dec. 3, Dawn: At the clamshell 11 in Intramuros, the CCCI team directed the traffic of utility men struggling with boa constrictor cables for the lights and the sounds of the World AIDS Day Concert due in 15 hours. Unfurling gigantic tarpaulin banners still hot off the presses that read: Breaking Barriers: Empower Girls and Women Against HIV/AIDS!', the Women and HIV/AIDS Network (WHAN) said "all systems go!" Now, even typhoon Yoyong could not stop the Women from celebrating World AIDS Day!
Dec. 3, 7:00 am Morning Broke in a glare-free flash of light, straight out of a Cecil B de Mille scenario. Canary yellow banners hung in lump posts announced the day-to-night affair. Under neon colored flags hoisted above shiny ficus foliage, UNAIDS officials welcomed everyone to WAD 2004.
Women from nearby communities cheered as guest trooped to the exhibition booths inside. At a restaurant nearby, WHAN gathered People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) who shared their issues of government neglect at a well-attended press conference together with UN officials. Outside, the daily costumed Ati-Atihan group, El Constar roused the crowd with a thunder of drums, gyrating with unusual bravado, to which an ethnic group called Katribu responded with much aplomb, making the crowd chant. Soon, NGO workers, students, community women, local residents and passerby skipped and stomped to the pulsating beat of the World AIDS Day 2004 parade around Aduana, Called Real and General Luna. Brimming with enthusiasm for their advocacies, the PLWHAs and their supporters told passersby that WAD 2004 was for women and girl-children with HIV-AIDS, the most vulnerable sector presently in need of utmost attention and care. Onstage, the children and youth from LUNDUYAN combined mime and choreography to high light their plea for understanding op PLWHAs, some of whom included their loved ones. By 7:00 pm, the WAD 2004 concert crowd had swelled. Concert host, PETA's Malou Crisologo, and CCCI's Bebang siy of "PSR" (Love, Sexuality and Relationships) radio brought the concert to a sobering start by showing majestically photographed documentary by Chris Lowenstein on Asian Women living with HIV/AIDS in the Mekong Sub-region. This was followed by a play on young people living with HIV-AIDS by the Philippines High School for the Arts' Dulaang Sipat Lawin. Reflecting on teenagers coping without access to information and services on reproductive health, the young director, JK Anicoche, injected humor through powerful songs, "jologspeak" and choreography. Ballet dancers Hayuma Habulan and Donna Miranda mesmerized the audience with a prayerful interpretation of the Breaking Barriers theme. An even more arresting group rendering Euripides' Trojan Women in Filipino, the CCP's Tanghalang Pilipino brought the point across with an excerpt on why relationships between women and men are essentially inequitable and lacking in compassion. 
(And thus the reason for the spread of HIV-AIDS among women and girls!) Guest dancer Natasha Garrucha enthralled with her fusion ethnic/jazz routine and the versatile Ms. Isay Alvarez sang "Aalagaan ka", a paean to young girls and women living with AIDS, her voice soaring despite the deplorable acoustic. Finally, a company called bowed to warn applause, but not before an even more heartfelt chorus by the UP Cherubim's of the WAD 2004 finale: "Lumaging Ginto" with lyrics by Rene O Villanueva and arrange by Vincent de Jesus. Indeed the night was young, or so it seemed, as the youth practically galloped towards the dance floor to jerk and hip-hop. For who could resist the thump of reggae and rock, when the live wire vocalist, Myra Ruaro, was shaking it up with the Brown Beat All Stars! Such was the uproar brought by the typhoon called WAD 2004!
