In commemoration of the 29th International AIDS Candlelight Memorial

A press statement by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
25 May 2012

As the global community commemorates the 29th International AIDS Candlelight Memorial, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) stands with the communities of people living with HIV (PLHIV) and key affected populations in claiming their right to health and dignity. This year’s theme, “Promoting Positive Health and Dignity Together”, highlights the important role of partnerships and collaboration in the campaign for positive prevention.

In the Philippines, as the number of reported new HIV infections continues to rise at unprecedented rates, the goal of universal access to treatment, care and support, as well as prevention services, becomes even more challenging. Without effective HIV prevention programs, it is estimated that there will be around 12,000 Filipinos living with HIV needing anti-retroviral treatment by 2015. The cost of providing treatment for all those in need by 2015 will be P428.5 million.

UNAIDS Philippines acknowledges the leadership of HIV Champions at the Senate and House of Representatives who have initiated legislative processes that aim to strengthen the legal framework for a national response to HIV and AIDS that is people-centered and rights-based. While Republic Act 8504, known as the AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 1998, had been cited by UNAIDS as a “good practice”, the rapidly expanding HIV epidemic in the Philippines calls for urgent policy reform. At the start of 2011, an initiative of civil society organizations, including support groups of people living with HIV led to the filing of House and Senate bills by the year’s end.

Among the noteworthy provisions of the bills are stronger measures protecting the rights of PLHIV, key affected populations, peer educators and other service-providers.  Likewise, the bills recognize the need for increased domestic resources to scale up coverage of HIV prevention programs, and allocate significant budgetary increases for HIV programs.

These legislative reforms are consistent with provisions of the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS: Intensifying Our Efforts to Eliminate HIV/AIDS, a resolution that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in June 2011. The Political Declaration, to which the Philippines is a signatory, affirms the commitment of Member States “to intensify national efforts to create enabling legal, social and policy frameworks in each national context in order to eliminate stigma, discrimination and violence related to HIV and promote access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support and non-discriminatory access to education, health care, employment and social services, (and) provide legal protections for people affected by HIV”.

UNAIDS calls on the country’s leaders in government, civil society, the private sector, and media to engage in dialogue that openly discuss the current status of the HIV and AIDS epidemic and the rights-based and evidence informed responses that are needed to move the country closer to attaining the Millennium Development Goal 6, to halt and reverse the spread of HIV by 2015.