CBCP exec: Many persons with HIV/AIDS come from broken families

Alarmed with the rising number of cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which could lead to the deadly Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), an official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said that many people living with HIV/AIDS hail from “dysfunctional families.”

In a report published on CBCP News on Wednesday, CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Health Care (ECHC) executive secretary Fr. Dan Vicente Cancino, MI, slammed the “distorted concept of sexuality” prevailing among the youth today which could lead them to doing sexual practices where they can contract the said disease.

“Many young people these days have a distorted concept of sexuality due to the lack of what we call family values formation. Because of this, they were deprived of a deep parent-child relationship. The familial ties have been damaged. It is no wonder that many of our (HIV/AIDS) patients would come from ‘broken families,’ dysfunctional families,” Cancino said.

He said that in order to combat the spread of the disease, families should go “back to basics,” or to exercise prayer and adhere to traditional Filipino family values.

“Let’s all go back to the basics: Family values and prayer. Too bad, many of our people have neglected their prayer lives. They are only reminded to pray when they are suffering from illness. That’s the time most of them run to the Lord,” he said.

The Department of Health last March said that 18 cases of HIV are being recorded daily, a steep increase from nine cases diagnosed per day in 2012.

According to the Philippine HIV and AIDS Registry, 536 new cases of HIV were recorded in January, 21 cases of which developed into full-blown AIDS.

According to DOH, majority of the cases recorded in January were from males and all were infected due to unprotected sex.

HIV leads to AIDS, a condition where the immune systems of the body are attacked and damaged by the virus, which can lead to death. RC

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