HIV awareness group head says PDEA can be charged
A chair of a Davaobased community organization supporting awareness on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) said that the person recently tagged by Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) as person living with HIV has an option to file charges.
Oscar Obenza Jr., chair of Olympus Society of Davao, active in supporting HIV awareness campaign and communitybased testing, said that the person who was named to be living with HIV after a Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency drug raid in Taguig can assert rights to confidentiality.
“To be honest, naa jud siya’y options labaw na sa balaod nato. We do have Republic Act 8504 Philippine Aids Prevention and Control Act of 1998. Nakabutang man gud didto ang confidentiality clause kung ila mang iingon nga shared confidentiality, dili man siya matawag na shared confidentiality kay dili man directly involved didto sa tao ang ilang gisultihan, gi-expose pa nila sa media (To be honest, he/she can have an option according to our law. We do have R.A 8504, it is stated there that there is a confidentiality clause, if they will say that it is a shared confidentiality, it cannot be called such because they did not tell it to the parties involved with the person, and they even exposed it to the media),” Obenza said.
A person with HIV was named among the 11 suspects arrested who were about to have a sex orgy in a Taguig hotel.
Based on reports yesterday from CNN Philippines, PDEA apologized for disclosing a drug suspect’s human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status, following the uproar online.
However, despite underscoring this type of option, Obenza said that based on his experience in community work, only a little percentage are resorting to file charges whenever someone violates the confidentiality of their condition.
“The challenge is no one files because of the process of filing. It involves a lot of parties,
meaning to say, those who are affected face the risk of exposing themselves. This is the reason why no one contests, because even in our conversations in the barangay, we learned that since the process is too long, even before you can continue raising complaint, many people have already known about your status,,” Obenza said in the vernacular.
Obenza added that R.A. 8504 should be strengthened because it is still not effectively used.
“The law is existing but it is still not used well, because as we look in the perspective of educators, it lacked many things. This is the reason why we have an initiative in tackling proxy consent since the (RA) 8504 has many restrictions,” Obenza said.
He said that there are only small penalties involved if one raises a complaint on confidentiality and these penalties won’t compensate to the inconvenience the affected persons of the exposures would get.
“Na-expose gud ka... naa pay family na naapektuhan pero ang kapalit ana, minimal lang na mga amount, administrative lang, dili enough ang penalties (You will be exposed and your family can be affected and the return is only a minimal amount, only administrative, so the penalties are not enough),” Obenza said.
Obenza added that he encourages the person named by PDEA to come out and file a case since this might be the beginning that our lawmakers can see that there are a lot of things they need to add in RA 8504. KVC