With a 140-percent increase in annual new HIV infections from 2010 to 2016 based on UN data, the Senate approved on third and final reading a bill seeking to reform the country’s 20-year-old legal framework and approach toward the prevention and control of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
The UN report said that the “Philippines has become the country with the fastest growing HIV epidemic in Asia and the Pacific.
The approved measure, Senate Bill No. 1390, was authored and sponsored by Senators Risa Hontiveros and Joseph Victor Ejercito, chairperson of the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality and the Committee on Health and Demography respectively.
“The rapid increase in the last six years reflects an alarming landscape: The epidemic is expanding in urban centers, affecting disproportionately populations and communities that are marginalized and vulnerable: young Filipinos; gay and bisexual men; transgender people; and people who use drugs,” she said.
“The time to be alarmed is now. The time to act is now, for the attainment of our Sustainable Development Goals, for the Filipino youth, for the vulnerable and the marginalized, and for those young people who need not die,” she added.
With the House of Representatives having approved its own version of the bill last December, both chambers of Congress will now convene for a bicameral conference committee to finalize the bill’s version for ratification and the President’s signature into law.
“This is an important victory in our fight to reverse the tide of the HIV-AIDS epidemic in the country. We now have a stronger and modern policy tool to appropriately respond to this problem,” Hontiveros said.
Hontiveros said the bill will update Republic Act 8504, or the “Philippine AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 1998,” to incorporate lessons from the current HIV response, as well as “to introduce newer evidence-based, human rights-informed, and gender transformative strategies to prevent and treat the epidemic.”
Health officials said the number of HIV/AIDS cases in the country continues to rise with the Department of Health recording a total of 11,103 cases in 2017.
Based on records, the 11,103 new infections seen in 2017 was higher than the 9,264 cases reported in 2016, 7,831 in 2015, 6,011 in 2014, 4,814 in 2013 and 3,338 in 2012, DoH said.
Under SBN 1390, the government is mandated “to improve access to HIV services, especially for key populations and vulnerable communities, and ensure social and financial risk protection for those who need to access these services.”
The bill will pave the way for the allocation of more funds on HIV prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and require “up-to-date education about HIV and AIDS in schools, communities, workplaces and vulnerable areas,” the senator said.
The bill will also compel government to “enhance anti-discrimination protection to promote the human rights of Filipinos living with HIV, key populations and vulnerable communities, and providers of HIV services.”
“At a time when stigma overrules government policies on this important health issue, we need to underscore that the foundation of curbing HIV must be based on the protection of human rights,” Hontiveros said.
She added that the bill would require government “to guarantee the meaningful participation and involvement of civil society, communities, and key populations” in its official programs and policies towards HIV/AIDs prevention and treatment.
Hontiveros cited the need to update the two-decade-old RA 8504, “given that new developments in prevention and treatment of HIV-AIDS were available and must be maximized by the government.”