TWENTY years after the enactment of the original law governing the handling of HIV and AIDS in the country, Filipinos are seeing a new measure that policy-makers say will help them cope with the new, alarming realities.
The enactment of the Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Law also ensures that the proper and adequate care for people living with HIV and AIDS will be afforded while protecting their rights, including right to work, authors of the law said on Wednesday.
Party-list Rep. Tom Villarin of Akbayan, one of the principal authors of the law, said President Duterte’s signing of this measure will ensure that people living with HIV should no longer be afraid to come out.
“While changes in perception and mindset will not happen overnight, it is a giant step in the right direction,” he said.
Indeed, it is, albeit the challenges against which it is to be wielded are, to say the least, daunting. Consider this: In October 2018, as the Senate and House of Representatives ratified the bicameral conference committee version of the bill, the World Health Organization expressed concern over the rising incidence of HIV in the country. This, while other countries in the Western Pacific region experienced a decline in HIV cases.
WHO Philippines Representative Gundo Aurel Weiler then noted that HIV prevalence had risen by 140 percent in the last six to eight years, while other countries in the region and in the world saw a 20-percent decline in HIV cases.
Weiler said before that there were 80,000 Filipinos living with HIV, and half of them are not aware that they have been infected.
Presidential Spokesman and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador S. Panelo said the measure, signed by the President last December 20, also provides for the establishment of policies and programs to ensure delivery of proper treatment, care and support services to Filipinos living with HIV. This will be in accordance with “evidence-based strategies and approaches which are in tune with key principles of human rights, gender equality and meaningful participation of communities.”
“We consider its enactment and signing timely and relevant on account of the report of the Department of Health disclosing that our country has the highest percentage relative to the increase of new HIV cases in the Asia-Pacific region from 2010 to 2016,” Panelo said on Wednesday.
“We laud our lawmakers, including various stakeholders, who immensely contributed to the passage of an updated legal framework addressing HIV and AIDS. This piece of landmark legislation will significantly reduce the stigma of people living with HIV or AIDS.”
Overdue
For her part, Dinagat Islands Rep. Kaka Bag-ao, another author of the law, said the HIV law is urgently needed and long overdue.
“The 20-year-old Philippine AIDS Prevention and Control Act will soon be replaced by a policy that will be more responsive to our current context,” she added.
“To all PLHIVs, I say: We see you and we hear you. You are not invisible. We listen to your stories—especially those told through your anonymous accounts on Twitter. Many may not know about your world in the realm of social media—but we are not one of those people. In fact, some of what we have read in your tweets have been incorporated in the changes we made in the bill,” she said
Bag-ao said in one pusit account—for people who don’t know, pusit means HIV-positive—someone said that it’s wrong to use “HIV/AIDS” when referring to both as separate concepts.
“This is what we need to explain to people. This is also why we made sure that we use the phrase ‘HIV and AIDS’ in the bill, meaning, they are distinct from each other,” she said.
The HIV and AIDS law
The law will restructure the legal framework on HIV and AIDS by harmonizing it with evidence-informed strategies and approaches on prevention, testing, screening, treatment, care and support, making the HIV response flexible and relevant to the characteristic of the HIV epidemic facing the country.
It also clarifies the roles and responsibilities of state institutions involved in the HIV and AIDS response, from government agencies to local governments, thus ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of the structure governing the response.
The law also mandates the establishment of a road map on HIV and AIDS that has clear strategies, targets, operationalization framework and funding.
It will also strengthen the information dissemination, education and stigma reduction mechanisms of the law, which guarantees that the country’s HIV and AIDS response is premised on the respect, recognition, and promotion of human rights and dignity.
The Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act will also ensure political correctness and sensitivity.
“This may seem minor, but for PLHIVs, this is an essential aspect of the new law in order to defeat the stigma associated with HIV and AIDS. In the old law, AIDS is referred to as a disease in the second sentence of the law. The new one looks at both HIV and AIDS as public health concerns,” Bag-ao said.
Employment
MEANWHILE, the new law also seeks to guarantee that PLHIVs shall not be deprived of any employment, livelihood, microfinance, self-help and cooperative programs by reason of their HIV status.
With this, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), in coordination with the Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Labor and Employment, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) shall be tasked with developing enabling policies and guidelines to ensure economic empowerment and independence designed for PLHIVs.
Moreover, the DSWD, in coordination with the Department of Health and Tesda, shall also be mandated to develop care and support programs for PLHIVs, including peer-led counseling and support, social protection, welfare assistance, and mechanisms for case management. These programs shall include care and support for their affected children, families, partners and support groups.
Stigma
Also, Bag-ao said Congress changed all reference to the “HIV and AIDS epidemic” to “HIV and AIDS situation” to address issues of stigma.
In the new law, the lawmaker said human rights is valued as a core guiding principle. “It is mentioned 10 times and even has its own section. In the old law, human rights was mentioned once only.”
Furthermore, she said, the Philippine National AIDS Council (PNAC) will be restructured.
“Before, PNAC had 26 members—17 government agencies, six NGOs involved in HIV and AIDS prevention, two organizations of medical professionals, and one PLHIV organization. In our new proposal, PNAC will have 21 members—12 from the government and nine from the civil society and private sectors, specifically two PLHIV organizations, one private organization with expertise in standard setting and service delivery, and six NGOs working for the welfare of identified key populations,” she said.
Greater protection for confidentiality is another feature of the new measure, she said.
In the old law, Bag-ao said medical confidentiality is guaranteed, but this does not cover instances when a PLHIV is “outed” through the media or social media.
The Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act has a provision to address this. It also seeks to reduce the stigma that forced disclosure perpetuates. The old law obliges an HIV-positive person to disclose his or her status to his or her sexual partner at the earliest opportune time, she said.
But the new law, aside from guaranteeing confidentiality, strongly encourages disclosure instead of imposing it. The PNAC is also tasked to foster an enabling environment to encourage newly tested HIV-positive individuals to disclose their status to their partners.
Minors
Bag-ao said there is also a need to recognize the fact that many people undergo their sexual debut when they are minors.
“While we seek to educate people to be responsible in their sexual behavior, we need to look at this reality. This is why 15-18 year-old individuals will be able to get tested without the need for parental consent. Those below 15 and who happen to be pregnant or engaged in high-risk behavior can undergo testing and counseling with the assistance of a licensed social worker or health worker,” she said.
Consent, in this case, she added, shall be obtained from the child without the need of the approval of a parent or guardian. This is also in response to the fact that there is a large percentage of young people who tested positive for HIV in recent years.
The law also provides stiffer penalties to those who discriminate against PLHIVs and to those who violate other provisions of the law, including the violation of confidentiality, spreading misinformation, denial of life insurance or HMO coverage, and several others.