Marianne (not her real name) is only 18 years old but she’s already involved in the world’s oldest profession—prostitution, that is. She was only 15 when she lost her virginity to her boyfriend, who was two years older than her.
Her boyfriend left her when he found out that she was pregnant. To avoid embarrassment for her family, she also left her hometown and came to Davao City. She stayed with a 17-year-old friend, who worked as a guest relation officer in a sleazy bar.
After the baby was born, Marianne joined her friend. To provide her child milk and other needs, she also moonlighted as a sexy dancer in another bar. She also goes out with some of her customers. “I accepted this as my fate,” she says.
Although prostitution is illegal and a serious criminal offense in the country, it is available through brothels (also known as casa), bars, karaoke bars, massage parlors, and escort services.
In recent years, however, some young girls have become more creative in selling sex. They are using mobile phones for their clients to contact them.
“They no longer have to be out on streets or in the brothels, they now wait in their houses where they will just be texted,” Jeanette Ampog, the executive director of Talikala (Chain), a non-governmental organization (NGO) dealing with prostituted women and children, told a news conference convened by the state-run Philippine Information Agency some years back.
But it’s not only women who are engaged in prostitution—even males, too. Twenty-two-year old Mark, a former call-center agent, quit his job because he could not endure the edginess of night shift. So, he is back now with what he used to do when he joined the bikini contests open when he was still a teenager. In one of the competitions, he met a businessman who offered him a huge sum to go to bed with him. At first, he was reluctant, but being tipsy and he needed money at that time, he went with the older man.
It was the beginning. When he found out that the gay community handpicks those with macho bodies, he underwent a body transformation by going to the gym. After two months of hard work, he finally got what that body he used to imagine. He became popular among his customers who contact him via his phone which he posted in his Facebook account.
Text prostitutes, as they are called, are considered freelancers— which mean they are not registered and mostly rely on pimps. And these are the group of sexual workers in Davao City who are hard to invite when it comes voluntary human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing.
In a news report, Precy Senoc, health education and population officer of City Health Office, was quoted as saying: “There are many aspects when it comes to those freelance sex workers. They can be on street or they are in their houses and can be contact via text messaging. Some of them are moving from one place to another so we have a hard time monitoring them.”
Edge Davao reporter Cheneen R. Capon quoted data released by the National Epidemiology Center of the Department of Health (DOH) which said that as of July 2014 the region “contributed 6 percent of the total 585 confirmed cases of HIV/AIDS in the country.” That’s equivalent to 35 new recorded cases.
In a recent workshop, Dr. Jose Gerard Belimac, manager of National Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Sexually Transmitted Infection Prevention Program of the DOH, pointed out Davao City as having an HIV prevalence rate that is higher than the national average of 3.5.
Based on data from 2013, Davao City had a prevalence rate at 5 percent, lower than those compared with Quezon City (6.7 percent), Manila (6.7 percent), Caloocan (5.3 percent), and Cebu (7.7 percent) but higher than Cagayan de Oro (4.7 percent).
The Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) said that if a country or an area already exceeded 5 percent in two years’ time, then HIV in these areas will be beyond control. “So we should not let the prevalence rate reach 5 percent,” Dr. Belimac urged.
Understanding AIDS
In 1985, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was unknown to almost everyone; Hollywood actor Rock Hudson was the first famous person the world knew to contract the whispered-about disease. For the first time, it had a face to put with the disease.
In the Philippines, the first person to come out in the open to tell about her life and how she acquired HIV was Maria Dolzura Cortez, who died in 1992. Her life story was serialized in Philippine Daily Inquirer and was made into a movie starring Vilma Santos (who won acting awards for her sterling performance).
While AIDS cases continue to drop in various parts of the world, the Philippines remains one of the countries in Asia which have failed to prevent the spread of HIV, according to the United Nations Program on HIV/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (UNAIDS).
The trend of HIV/AIDS cases in Davao City and other five cities is very alarming, indeed. “We are alarmed by the lack of awareness and information of the public regarding HIV,” deplored. Dr. Eden Divinagracia, executive director of Philippine NGO Council on Population, Health and Welfare Inc.
AIDS is caused by a deficiency in the body’s immune system. “It is a syndrome because there are a range of different symptoms which are not always found in each case,” explains Dr. John Hubley, author of The AIDS Handbook. “It is acquired because AIDS is an infectious disease caused by a virus which is spread from person to person through a variety of routes. This makes it different from immune deficiency from other causes such as treatment with anti-cancer drugs or immune system suppressing drugs given to persons receiving transplant operations.”
HIV is present in all body fluids of an infected person but is concentrated in blood, semen and vaginal fluids. Virtually, it is present in all body tissues and organs including the brain and spinal cord. It can be found in tears, saliva and breast milk although these last three are not considered significant routes of infection.
But you don’t get HIV from kissing. To be infected, you need to imbibe 32 liters of an infected person’s saliva, according to Health Action Information Network (HAIN). “That would be enough saliva to fill up the gasoline tank of six-by-sic truck. And the transfer should happen in one kissing session!” HAIN said.
“A single sexual encounter can be sufficient to transmit HIV,” Dr. Hubley wrote. “Although the risk from an individual sexual act may be low, the more times a person has sex, the greater the likelihood that transmission will take place. Women appear to be more at risk than men from heterosexual sex. The transmission of HIV from man to woman is believed to take place more easily than from woman to man.”
Men having sex with men
Philip Castro, the UNDP’s HIV/AIDS programme officer in the Philippines, said that most of the new HIV infections in the country were attributed to unprotected men-to-men sex (MSM). “What’s more alarming is that more than 60 percent of [those engaging in] MSM had reported having unsafe sex in their last contact,” he said.
Dr. Eric Tayag, director of the National Epidemiology Center (NEC), explained that men who engage in sex with men were not all homosexuals. “HIV/AIDS is not about being gay but about men having unprotected sex with men,” he said.
The mushrooming of social-networking sites, which cater to people looking for sex partners, has been pinpointed as one of the major factors in the rise of HIV/AIDS cases in the country, Tayag claimed.
What is alarming is that more and more young people are engaged in sexually risky behavior. “They are getting younger and younger. They are involved in sexual activities that leave them prone to HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases,” said Hadji Balajadia, an official of the National Confederation of Youth Advocates.
What is even more frightening is the fact that more and more Filipino children are “employed” in sex trade. In Davao City, most of those who are considered freelancers are minors, whose age ranges from 14 to 16. “It’s a sad reality for our young children,” Senoc was quoted as saying.
HIV testing
In order for people, particularly those engaged in high-risk behaviors, to know if they are positive for HIV, the city government of Davao is offering free HIV/AIDS testing.
“You don’t have to worry since the City Health Office Reproductive Health and Wellness Center assures that the testing is confidential and free,” said Alma Mondragon, the Mindanao executive director of Alliance Against Aids in Mindanao.
“HIV testing is different among all the health services because the patients don’t just come in prepared,” pointed out Jordana P. Ramiterre, chief of Reproductive Health and Wellness Center (RHWC). “With HIV/AIDS, you have to really sell it that it is being done in all confidentiality and all the information being gathered are in actual privacy so it’s really one-on-one for every individual.”
One of those who personally volunteered to be tested recently is Perry Paul G. Lamanilao, a digital media strategist by profession. He previously worked as social media coordinators for different non-governmental organizations in Mindanao. As a media practitioner, he advocates for media literacy and journalism in Mindanao, particularly in Davao City.
“Since most people don’t want to be tested,” Lamanilao said, “I wanted to find out what goes in there. It is only by experiencing it that I can write it much better.”
He did. And, in his own words, this was what had happened:
Last February 25 I went to the RHWC at Jacinto Street to find out what would be the process to get tested. The RHWC offers 100 percent free HIV- and syphilis-testing and counselling. I submitted myself for a voluntary HIV testing.
It was early afternoon when I arrived at the RHWC. There were others who were waiting for their names to be called for the test. One of the representative handed over to me a form to be filled-out. It asked for my personal details.
After completing the form, the representative asked me to go for pre-counselling unit. I was asked to answer some questions like why I submit myself for the testing. He also asked for my sexual orientations and preferences, my activities for the past months and years, and things like how often I engage myself to sex, among others.
Later, he did a lecture on how one can get HIV and how HIV can possibly result to AIDS. The counsellor also discussed Republic Act 8504, about some laws and rights that protect the person’s confidentiality in all that had been discussed.
After the pre-test counselling, I went to the next room for blood extraction. The medical technologist verified my details, asked for a valid government-issued identification card to make sure that my name and other details are true and correct in the form that I submitted.
Then he extracted 5 cubic meters (equivalent to 5 milliliters) of my blood. After, he gave me a small piece of paper, actually a slip, which shows the laboratory code, my name, and the date. That slip is required to get the result.
I waited for about 30 minutes. While waiting my mind was working; I told myself that there are only three persons who will know the result: myself, the medical technologist, and the counselor.
Then, the suspense started. When the counsellor called my name, I was already sort of frightened. What if? Anyway, he told me to proceed right away to a room. I gave the slip and he handed over to me the result, securely stapled. He allowed me to open the folded letter-sized paper first; then, I voluntarily told him the result: non-reactive. It simply means that I am negative to HIV.
Lifelong treatment
“HIV is like the modern leprosy, except it is hidden,” said Humphrey Gorriceta, who contracted HIV after having unprotected sex with multiple male partners. He now campaigns to raise public awareness about the dangers of unsafe sex and help other people infected with HIV.
People who are positive with HIV should not lose hope. Dr. Josephine Villafuerte, of Davao’s CHO, said HIV must not be associated with death since there are now medicines which can prolong their lives. “There are free medicines we can provide for them,” she assured.
A “lifelong treatment” is how Dr. Belimac describes the treatment for people living with HIV. He said that outpatients or those receiving therapy in their own homes would have to get the anti-retroviral drugs from one of the 26 treatment hubs in the country. He urged them to consistently see their doctors.
Like most diseases, HIV can be prevented—as easy as ABC: abstain from sex, be faithful to your partner, use condoms, especially if you have multiple partners, don’t share needles, and be educated on HIV, a health expert reiterated.
“HIV is highly preventable,” said Dr. Belimac. “The government can only provide you information, diagnosis, and treatment. But the most effective way of preventing HIV still heavily depends on the practices of informed individuals.”