In 1995, 1,200 men living in urban areas and aged between 15 and 45 were asked what measures they believed would protect them from HIV infection. The three most popular measures turned out to be: taking antibiotics, keeping fit and healthy and saying a prayer.
These three means of "protection" from HIV make as much sense as President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo proclaiming before a regional summit that the reason the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country is "low and slow" is that Filipinos have a "high morality."
So what was our President saying? That the people in countries where there is a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS are immoral? Or that people who are living with HIV are paying the price for their "low morality"?
In a country where both the national leadership and ordinary folk are not only living in denial but speaking and behaving out of appalling ignorance and arrogance, the outlook for a concerted program to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS isn't good.
Maybe that's why during the recent visit of Dr. Nafis Sadik, the UN secretary general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, who was here to attend an international conference of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, Dr. Sadik took every chance she could to remind Filipinos about the urgent need to address the issues of HIV/AIDS in the Philippines.
In a press conference, Dr. Sadik warned that while the prevalence of HIV/AIDS here has been described as "low and slow," "it was low and slow in many countries before they had a rapid increase in HIV/AIDS cases." In Vietnam, for instance, HIV infection rates among sex workers and their clients increased from almost "zero" in 1996 to more than 20 percent in 2000. In Indonesia, HIV infection among sex workers "has jumped from 6 percent to 26 percent in several sites." In Thailand, AIDS is now considered the No. 1 killer, this despite the progress the country has made in slowing the rate of new infections.
"THERE is no room for complacency," Dr. Sadik warned, noting that there is a "huge explosion potential" for HIV/AIDS in the Philippines because "all known routes of transmission have been observed here."
Among these are "risky behavior (such as having multiple sex partners) at sizeable levels of frequency"; low level of condom use, as gleaned from surveys that show only 37 percent of commercial sex workers regularly require their clients to use condoms; the large number of migrant workers which comprises almost 10 percent of the entire population; and a large youth population who are particularly at risk of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, given their lack of knowledge about sex and responsible sexual behavior.
The time to act decisively and for officials at the highest levels to show "political will" in devoting money and efforts toward battling HIV/AIDS is right now, while the epidemic is still "low and slow." "We have a window of opportunity and a gift of time-this is the period where we could act much in advance of the impending storm, in fact, we can act to prevent such a storm from becoming a major one through effective prevention strategies," Dr. Sadik said.
In countries where the national leadership decided to take decisive action and strong and visible advocacy on HIV/AIDS, Dr. Sadik said, a growing HIV/AIDS crisis was not only averted but actually turned around. In Senegal, to cite just one country, "they were able to bring down the levels of new infections within one year."
RIGHT after the press conference, Dr. Sadik graced the closing of a special youth forum on adolescent health and sexuality that they called "Gentxt... Talk...Sex."
Drawing about 50 young people (students from high schools and colleges in Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog and Baguio, as well as working youth), the forum asked the participants to identify key issues of adolescent reproductive health, formulate core messages they think the public should be aware of, and then to present these in a "creative" manner.
What struck me as I watched the three groups present their issues and messages was the importance the young people placed on the role of parents as sex educators. All three groups identified the inability or refusal of parents to talk to their children about sex and relationships as a major "issue." As one group put it, "We just need someone to talk to. Listen to what is not being said. Don't push me to be you. Help me find myself."
Asserting that "the youth are not the problem but the solution," the young people portrayed how parents often refuse to answer straightforward questions about changes in a young person's body (such as a father's embarrassment when asked by his daughter about blood stains on her pants). The situation is compounded by "conservative" teachers who think explaining the reproductive process is "bastos," and judgmental employers who condemn a worker who gets pregnant out of wedlock without benefit of a hearing.
INDEED, even as adults, especially our political leaders, shoot off their mouths about pre-marital sex and how young people are so much more horny these days (forgetting apparently that our own parents in our time thought we, too, were having more sex than they), what young people are telling us is that they rely on us for information, guidance and values. But in our fear, embarrassment and general lack of skills in communicating with our children, we are surrendering the ground to the media and to their peers who may be as ignorant as they are.
Young people don't need sermons or scares. All a parent has to do, they said, is "listen...be a friend."
