DISTRIBUTING condoms will likely spread the deadly HIV/AIDS virus and just a waste of taxpayers’ money, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
Fr. Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the CBCP’s public affairs committee, made the remark after the Department of Health said it will distribute condoms in schools to prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS among the youth.
But the CBCP opposes the government’s safe-sex drive, saying that students should be given knowledge, not condoms, and branded the campaign as nothing but a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“Distributing condoms will only condone sexual activity among students,” Secillano said.
Health authorities have also expressed concern over the increasing number of teenage pregnancies, and are considering sex education for students between the ages of 15 to 24.
Secillano recognized there is a need to address the problem but urged the government to use a cultural and values-based approach for HIV/AIDS prevention.
“The government should invest more in educating people about the perils of ‘sporadic sexual activity’ than procuring and distributing condoms,” he said.
“The Church has to continue with its mandate to educate and inform people about the dignity of every person and continue to promote understanding of the Theology of the Body,” CBCP’s Youth Ministry chairman Fr. Conegundo Garganta said.
For his part, Balanga, Bataan Bishop Ruperto Santos, chairman of the CBCP – Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, said that the DOH campaign will only expose the Filipino youth to premarital sex.
“You cannot correct a mistake by making a mistake,” Santos said. “Giving condoms or pills is just encouraging immoralities and illicit affairs.”
Human immunodeficiency virus infects cells of the immune system, making the patient vulnerable to infections. AIDS or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a term applied to advance stages of HIV infection, according to the World Health Organization.
HIV is usually transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse and transfusion of contaminated blood. It can also be transmitted between a mother and her child during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.
Earlier reports said that there were 38,114 HIV cases recorded in the Philippines from 1984 to October 2016. Of the number, 32,099 were recorded from 2011 to 2016. Almost a third of that involved patients aged 15 to 24.