FIVE lawmakers yesterday sought P400 million funding to jumpstart a new National HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (Acquired immune deficiency syndrome) Plan amid reports the dreaded disease now infects seven Filipinos every 24 hours, a sharp increase from one Filipino every 72 hours a decade ago.
Reps. Maria Isabelle Climaco (Zamboanga City), Janette Garin (Iloilo), Jorge Banal (Quezon City), Kaka Bag-ao (Akbayan) and Arnel Ty (LPG-MA) filed House Bill No. 5312 to set definite strategies, operating guidelines, and targets against the disease.
“Public funding for AIDS prevention and control has actually declined from P81 million in 2009 to just P65 million in the proposed 2012 national budget,” said Ty.
The bill sets forceful strategies to hold back the virus that causes AIDS, a disease with no known cure.
They want the country’s 13-year-old AIDS Prevention and Control Law rewritten in a bid to suppress the highly contagious disease that destroys the human body’s immune system.
Besides energizing the multi-sectoral Philippine National AIDS Council, the measure’s new approaches include the immediate installation of Local AIDS Councils with forceful and concentrated action plans at the regional, provincial, city and municipal levels.
”This cutback is deplorable, considering we are one of only seven countries in the world where new HIV cases are rapidly increasing amid a global slowdown,” he said.
The World Health Organization has expressed concern that while HIV seems to be generally slowing down in many parts of the world, it appears to be growing at an alarming rate in the Philippines and six other countries — Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
“That HIV is infecting seven Filipinos every day is actually an understatement. We are talking here only of cases passively detected, since compulsory HIV-testing is prohibited by law to prevent discrimination of HIV-positive people, and rightly so,” said Ty.
Ty said the proposed Comprehensive AIDS Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support Policy and Plan Act that he and his colleagues introduced has clear-cut mandates for specific agencies to provide certain programs meant to alleviate the conditions of the growing number of Filipinos living with HIV. –Ryan Ponce Pacpaco
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