Discrimination persists among HIV patients

JAYSON WAS ABROAD when he learned he contracted HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) because of his numerous sexual dalliances. He broke up with his foreign partner and decided to live the rest of his life back home.

Home is a town in Mountain Province, where his family is part of the “kadangyan” or the upper caste. But Jayson could not set foot in his home village again because of the stigma.

He decided to become one of the spokespersons for the awareness of HIV/AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) to access the free antiretroviral treatment provided by the government. But he had to do his speaking engagements elsewhere but the Cordillera.

His friend, Lyn Madalang, executive director of the anti-gender violence group Ebgan Inc., says Jayson once spoke as a person living with HIV/AIDS on television in Baguio City, but he did this behind a screen to hide his identity.

When Jayson died four years ago, only a few of his friends and relatives knew the real cause of his death. His immediate family was told that he died of something else.

His coffin was sealed for the wake in Baguio, however, upon orders of the local health office, his remains were later cremated.

Madalang, who accompanied Jayson’s ashes back to his village, says the elders would not accept him in a small urn.

Traditional practice entails a body, which watches over the funeral feast that would last for a week in the case of the kadangyan. Embalming was forbidden in the olden days and, sometimes, the corpse was made to sit on a death chair, called “sangadchil,” and smoked for days.

Some relatives decided to build a traditional wooden coffin, called “alongan,” and weighed it to pretend that Jayson’s body was still there to appease the elders, and continue with the rituals, Madalang says.

She says another man in Mountain Province also suffered the same fate. Despite written demands of the man to his friends that his family should know the real cause of his death, he, too, was buried with his secret that he contracted HIV.

Not necessary

As it turned out, this is no longer necessary.

Celestino Ramirez, a board member of Positive Action Foundation Philippines Inc., a support organization for people living with HIV, says those who died because of complications from HIV/AIDS are entitled to a decent burial.

“Republic Act No. 8504 (AIDS Prevention and Control Act) has been in effect since 1998. [Jayson] deserved a proper ritual, especially since he was an indigenous person. Let us not violate the culture where he came from,” Ramirez says.

Section 41 of RA 8504 states that “a deceased person who had AIDS or who was known, suspected or perceived to be HIV-positive, shall not be denied decent burial services.”

Ramirez says a coffin should be sealed only in extreme cases, such as when a person died of an extremely communicable disease.

“You can mainly acquire HIV through unprotected penetrative sex with a person living with HIV, blood transfusion or needle sharing,” he says.

Worse

It was worse in the early years of the disease.

Ramirez cites a case when neighbors of a family infected with HIV wanted to burn their house. He also recalled a case of an HIV patient dying in front of his family in La Union.

“When he died, [health] officials wrapped the body in a garbage bag. Pretend that they could not find a decent body bag, but how would you feel as a sibling when you see the body being put in a garbage bag? And then the body was [transported in] a tricycle,” he says.

Dr. Eric Tayag, director of the Department of Health’s (DOH) National Epidemiology Center, says the recent trends in HIV transmission in the country might invite further stigma, and discrimination.

Tayag says that of the 483 new cases of HIV infection in the first quarter of 2011, almost all are sexually transmitted. Of the number, 46 percent are homosexual in nature and 34 percent, bisexual.

He says last year, the estimated number of Filipinos living with HIV was 12,200. The DOH expects the figure to go up to 18,290 this year, and to 25,040 in 2012. –Frank Cimatu, Philippine Daily Inquirer