The Catholic church in the Philippines has been actively and vigorously opposing the Reproductive Health Bill currently pending in congress. As we all now, they are against any form of contraception that doesn’t equate to abstinence.

On a related note, the instances of HIV infections in the Philippines is up 45% last year.

In previous years, there was an average of 20 cases reported every month. But the average now rose to 29 starting 2007, Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd said.

The health agency said sexual intercourse remains the leading mode of transmission with 88 percent of cases.

The healthy agency also noted that condom use among people who are most at risk in contracting HIV or AIDS is still below the universal access target.

The 2007 Integrated HIV Behavioral and Serologic Surveillance revealed that only 48 percent of female sex workers, 27 percent of injecting drug users and 49 percent of men having sex with men who had multiple sex partners used a condom.

We all know that condoms are the first line of defense against HIV. Yeah, there’s still abstinence, but where’s the fun in that? The Catholic church is completely against condoms.

This is the kind of issue the Catholic church would just love to sink their teeth into. Now they’re in a dilemma, though. Make their usual noises and blame everyone-except-god for the increase in HIV infections or continue their campaign against the Reproductive Health Bill.

I think they’ll wait until next year to address the HIV issue. Once everybody forgets that they were working against AIDS prevention by opposing the bill.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 2:55 am and is filed under Catholics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.