DOH sec on HIV upsurge: ‘I don’t know why kids shun condoms’
HIV infections surged 500 percent in first quarter 2025. Fifty-seven cases were recorded each day, averaging 1,700 cases a month, in age group 15-25. Youngest victim is a 12-year-old in Palawan.
To that alarming news Health Sec. Teodoro Herbosa hollered: Let’s declare a national public health emergency.
But wait a minute. Isn’t the Department of Health in charge of disease prevention, monitoring, treatment and public education?
So what has Herbosa been doing since appointment on June 5, 2023? Why was he taken by surprise when he was supposed to be on top of the situation?
“Ayaw gumamit ng condom nitong mga bata eh, I don’t know why,” Herbosa reportedly shrugged in a recent interview.
That means he doesn’t know what’s going on.
But DOH staff do. They’ve long been grumbling about it.
Complaints reached this column. Sources requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. Perhaps Sen. Jinggoy Estrada can flesh it out, since he’s calling for “comprehensive inquiry” by Sen. Bong Go’s committee on health. Among the inputs:
• “DOH never learns from experience. Poor info campaign and health education. Laging panic mode nalang kapag may outbreak – monkeypox and other re-emerging diseases.”
• “For HIV they do not have manuals, standard operating procedures, not even guidelines. The Disease Prevention and Control Bureau is focused on tuberculosis (eighth leading cause of death). Other infectious diseases are left out – HIV, hepatitis.”
• “May intervention naman sa HIV. But policy-wise, walang health education, behavioral change, info dissemination.”
• “Technical working group in charge of this talks mostly about distribution of condoms and lubricants. They are just encouraging and accepting [early teen male-to-male sex] as normal activity. They should’ve focused on behavioral change. Imagine our resources just being used for condom and lubricant distribution. Nakakalungkot.”
• “Not necessary, Medyo OA (overacting). We don’t need to declare national emergency. Just have better education, surveillance, accessible medicines, remove stigma. Perhaps moral revival: one partner, avoid multiple partners and attending orgies – yes, orgies are even advertised online.”
Despite DOH emphasis on TB, the World Health Organization ranked the Philippines the fourth highest in infections. WHO’s 2024 Global Tuberculosis Report estimated the incidence around 739,000 cases, or 643 per 100,000 Filipinos in 2023. DOH recorded only 575,770. But Herbosa conceded last March 28 that patients failed to return for treatment or were misdiagnosed.
WHO supports Herbosa’s push for national public health emergency.
But what does HIV emergency entail? Does it mean DOH is asking for more money – after it did little to fight the highly infectious virus?
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In his State of the Nation in July, President Bongbong Marcos will report on his promised e-Gates project. It’s the instant processing of arriving and departing passengers at international air and seaports.
He almost had nothing to report – due to a brouhaha at the Bureau of Immigration last May 2. It starred BI Commissioner Joel Viado, whom BBM appointed in October 2024.
That day the BI bids and awards committee was rushing the e-Gates final terms of reference. Viado barged into the meeting unannounced and uninvited. He repeatedly yelled at the five BAC members to hurry up and sign it, “Just do it!”
They were taken aback, since procuring agency heads must respect the independence of BACs. That’s to avoid rigging of contracts. BI’s BAC, like in other agencies, consists of division chiefs and higher-ups.
Atty. Gilbert Repizo, BI Board of Special Inquiry chief and BAC vice chairman, refused to sign. To do so would be illegal, he told Viado, citing his 29 years’ government service.
Viado walked out and slammed the door. It was all caught on tape, since BAC meetings are, by law, recorded.
Repizo resigned from the BAC. So did Deputy Commissioner Daniel Laogan as chairman. Plus another member. The two remnants were unable to finish the agenda.
Repizo had good reason for caution. The BAC had drafted the terms of reference as far back as January, then submitted it to the Department of Justice for review. It stayed at DOJ for three months, with revisions supposedly by Viado’s college buddies.
It was returned to them with two glaring anomalies:
• E-Gates will not have the latest iris-scan identification technology, rendering it obsolete;
• There will be no electronic gate at Zamboanga international seaport, notorious for sneak-in and out by criminals (latest suspects: Alice Guo, sister Shiela, brother Wesley and Cassandra Li Ong in July 2024, followed by Harry Roque on Sept. 2, for which then-BI commissioner Norman Tansingco was sacked).
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin summoned Repizo and Laogan to Malacañang on May 3 and requested them to finish the legal procurement process. They and the three other BAC members complied.
But the two e-Gates flaws allegedly remain.
It ain’t over. On June 2, anonymous BI employees complained to Bersamin about Viado’s supposed abuses. These ranged from expediting the release on bail of three aliens in illegal offshore gaming, auction of visas to foreigners, deportation of 10 Vietnamese to Cambodia, detention of 39 illegal aliens at the BI conference room instead of the cell, release of 114 other illegal alien gamers and tardiness.
On June 13 Repizo wrote Viado, copy furnished BBM and Bersamin, about the “P30-million payoff” for hasty release of the three Chinese gambling bosses.
“I will not dignify accusations by answering point by point,” Viado posted on BI’s website. “I prefer instead to leave the matter in the hands of [the Senate] to investigate all issues.”
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