Ten important news updates for every Philippines family to discuss before getting tested for HIV and HBV.
- Statistically on the balance of probability in the Philippines a person having unprotected sex with a new partner will contract the HIV virus or another more highly morbid sexually transmitted infection like Hepatitis B (HBV). That’s because many people are already carriers of HBV and HIV and other infections, well over 8 million.
- HBV may kill far more people than HIV will kill.
- Some day, HIV will kill nobody suggests doctors and scientists at a July 2019 World HIV conference in Mexico City.
- Hepatitis B (HBV), with higher morbidity than HIV, has become hyper endemic in the Philippines. As much as 17% of the adult population, nearly seven and a half million adult Filipinos, are infected with HBV, a disease that transmits sexually more often and more easily than HIV. Authoritative information on HBV is available here.
- The RINJ Foundation, a global civil society group is asking the Pontiff to order all Philippines clergy to undergo regular HIV and HBV tests. In a letter it says, “For those priests and other clergy who test positive, mandatory treatment is an obvious must-do.” The organization told FPM.news that its reasons are based on information from confidential complainants but that in light of recent news, the Catholic Church should have taken this step already. The NGO said that for survivors of sexual exploitation there is no shame in testing positive. Persons who begin HIV treatment are almost certain of becoming non-contagious and living relatively normal lives.
- The RINJ group has offered free assistance anywhere in the world to readers who have become triggered by its demands on the Catholic Church. The information for Filipinos is here, at babaeako.
- The HIV epidemic in the Philippines is worsening.
- Incest and rape in the Philippines are on the rise.
- Suicide in the Philippines is on the rise.
- New solutions are available including better prophylaxis for HIV; a PH-approved HBV vaccine; and help is available even for people with comorbid HIV and HBV. Getting tested and starting treatment are the steps all the doctors FPM.news spoke with are urging.
by Melissa Hemingway
Civil Society group: All clergy must be tested & treated if positive for HIV & HBV.
Photo Credit: Melissa Hemingway / FPMag
Photo Art/Cropping/Alteration: Rosa Yamamoto FPM.news
This weekend FPM.news interviewed a female security expert and former soldier now employed by a mercenary-type organization that protects women and children in war zones. This woman is in the Philippines to work with and train local private security to assist a family whose child must testify about a sexual assault crime. The family has determined the child to be at risk and private security is indicated.
FPM.news will publish today the rest of that report but in the meantime decided to share some of the background research FPM.news conducted prior to the interview in order to understand why there is such a need for witness protection in rape trials in the Philippines.
“Philippines Women’s groups may have missed their mark by not focussing on the issues of the 21st century,” says feminist Rosa Yamamoto. “The country is consumed with beauty contests which in reality add little or no value to the lives of the vast majority of Philippines women,” she added.
Photo Credit: Melissa Hemingway
Photo Art/Cropping: Rosa Yamamoto FPM.news
Cursory Analysis of Confidential Philippines Rape Survivor Accounts submitted to a Global Civil Society Women’s Group*
* The RINJ Foundation reports that it has over 100,000 members in the Philippines.
“Rape survivors are at considerable risk if they speak out about the crime committed against them,” says a data analyst, Fred Harris, working for The RINJ Foundation.
In the Philippines the jargon is rape/slay. That’s important because those two crimes are seldom connected. Philippines women do not generally report sexual assault crime and children in absolute terms never report the crime to authorities.
Recently, many convicted murderers who also raped their victim were released from prison into the public. The President of the Philippines jumped on the problem and slammed the individuals involved demanding certain prisoners return. There are no accounts yet of the damage done before President Duterte’s dragnet re-incarcerated the capital criminals.
The Rape / Slay connection is often not made because the body is never found or the cause of death is not definitive and never connected to sexual violence. Why?
According to nurse specialist Michele Francis, “In most cases reported by families, usually siblings, the victim has been raped many times and finally finds either desperation or courage to make an attempt to report the crime by confiding to a friend who betrayed the trust or making a threat to report the crime if the perpetrator does not stop. They then go missing. That is a statistic, not an opinion.”
Philippines President offers strong condemnation of sexual misconduct against children.
Despite Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s potty-mouth rape jokes, his deeds are different. It is no joke that Duterte is intolerant of child sexual assault. That’s good because in absolute terms, mature adult women are seldom raped in the Philippines as compared to children. The vast majority of sexual misconduct is directed at children and very young adults.
As recently as March of this year, an obviously upset President Duterte said, “To the priests who raped children and fondled *—*, you s*ns of b*tches, I will really kill you. Why should I be afraid? If you all get killed tonight, that would be better. Then we will have a better world…”
In February, the Philippines was shocked to hear of a priest raping a four-year-old.
In early September the public became aware of an American priest who had built a church in the Philippines decades ago and began raping boys as young as 7. Twenty or more victims have come forward. More may be heard from yet.
This conduct of the Catholic Church has continued for decades.
In 2002, the Philippines’ national conference of bishops ended years of silence to admit that the church faced “cases of grave sexual misconduct” among the clergy. One archbishop estimated that 200 of the country’s 7,000 priests may have committed some form of sexual impropriety. The bishops promised new rules that would “provide steps for profound renewal.” Cite: SunStar
“His emotion,” said one medical practitioner who provides care to victims, “is likely shared by most of an entire country if not all around the world”.
That would be hard to prove but notably there has been little protest against President Duterte’s emotionally charged reaction to recent and continuing news of heinous crimes committed by clergy persons against Philippines’ children and young persons. The silence might be an endorsement of at least the emotion.
“Don’t kill the sex offenders, says nurse Francis, “we need them in prison where we can study their brains and help society catch the other offenders like them.”
In recent months in the Philippines a small number of priests have been murdered. Not much data is available. Neither the Catholic Church nor the government has provided much information.
Age of consent in the Philippines is 12. That is the lowest age in the world. It should be raised to the global universal standard of 16 say most human rights activists.
Institutions in the Philippines including indigenous NGOs and government organizations are faced with the bandying phrases like maruming babae which is a form of victim blaming. Victim blamers don’t seem to realize that they actually make the situation worse by encouraging a culture of rape combined with a culture of silence.
The Philippines Department of Health (DoH) is obviously struggling with the impact of sexual violence. Statistics are shockingly revealing but the language the DOH is a potpourri of 1950s-era disaster recipes.
The DOH claims to seek a “gender-fair and violence-free community where women and their children are empowered“. That raised more than a few eyebrows among the women FPM.news spoke with on the matter.
- A government that is accused of murdering nearly thirty thousand of its poorest citizens obviously seems not to be working toward “a violence-free community”. But the other weasel words are equally disturbing if not worse. “Gender-fair”?
- Gender fair in the Philippines from the ranks of the patriarch is interpreted as men sexing children (under 16) and getting away with such crime.
- That same patriarch long-ago created an age of consent of 12 years. This has created endless pre-trial arguments about what was said before the event and causes an end to rape prosecutions.
- “Between a male and a female in a Philippines courtroom, the word of the male is given higher weight, and that is why cases never go to trial.” says a female Philippines lawyer who asked not to be named.
The Philippines Department of Health and the HIV Epidemic
According to UNAIDS, of the very small percentile of the global population tested for HIV there were approximately 36.9 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS in 2017. Of these, 1.8 million were children (under 15 years old). An estimated 1.8 million individuals worldwide became newly infected with HIV in 2017 – about 5,000 new infections per day.
The RINJ Foundation has estimated that more than a million persons, about 0.8 % of the population of the Philippines, is infected with the HIV virus.
The global NGO also tells patients to “stop worrying about HIV Stigma; get tested; and start treatment to suppress HIV to below detectable levels. You are then a hero and HIV-non-contagious”.
According to a volunteer who spent three months in the Philippines working on the HIV project for The RINJ Foundation:
“The Philippines government doesn’t seem to receive the data, because its public is terrified of its government hence will not get tested and will not report medical issues that are probably symptoms of acute retroviral syndrome, the early stages of HIV.
“The other factor is that HIV testing may in this ultra-religious country require revealing that the infection is the result of rape with all of its attached stigma and complications. That’s too much impediment. Patients say they will not seek help from the government-operated agencies. They are terrified of their government.
“But in fact, in my experience, getting tested and starting treatment makes the government happy with the Filipino citizen,” she added.
In the DoH, the mentality needs some work. There is an “us vs them” approach and an unrealistically elevated sense of entitlement among practitioners plus a quest for money and a great disdain for the poor. Workers seem to be underpaid based on work description but maybe overpaid based on performance and attitude. This is only a small straw poll but it is terrifying.
FPM.news interviewed ten medical practitioners in hospitals of the Philippines and learned that the consensus of this straw poll was that:
- A. “Drug users are responsible for the spread of HIV.”
- Q. Why?
- A. “Because they use drugs”
- Q. How do they use their drugs.
- A. “They put the Shabu in their nose.”
- Q. What can be done about this?
- A. “The President is doing the right thing by killing them”.
- Q. We are done here.
The Spiritual leaders of the Philippines have a Lock-Step Following of about 85 million persons. Sadly the Church is the Quintessential Pervert
Among the worst offender in the Philippines‘ institutions is the Catholic Church. An Associated Press report on 9 September suggested that, “In the Philippines, the church has long shrugged off the presence of sex offenders and the criminal justice system often ignores the problem.”
Most women’s groups in the Philippines are political dynasties that focus on their founders’ prosperity. None have resulted in a significant change to the rapidly increasing rate of incest and rape of young persons and children, both male and female.
In fact, rape culture is so bad that the crime of forcible rape is considered a social norm in the Philippines say numerous reports.
“In the Philippines,” says UNICEF, “thousands of children are robbed of their childhood, and suffer lifelong developmental challenges, as a result of violence. Impacts include both mental and physical health disorders, including anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease, as well as health-risk behaviours including smoking, alcoholism, drug abuse and engagement in high risk sexual activity.” Read: National Baseline Study on Violence Against Children in the Philippines Results
What people don’t seem to widely discuss is that the children and the most vulnerable of young women and men are the victims.
Including prison rape and children, males are more often rape victims in incidents of rape than are females. That means that whereas the number of males raped may not be as high, the number of incidents of male rape is higher than of females based on this criteria including prisons and all child rapes.
Children are the forgotten victims of sexual violence in the #MeToo era. The RINJ group runs an annual awareness campaign against child exploitation for the purpose of quashing the child sex trade. The Philippines has been significantly victimized by international criminals, even from America. A Sacramento man convicted of Traveling to the Philippines to have sex with minors, produce child pornography (almost 30,000 images), and buying Philippines children – The RINJ Foundation Women Sought Consecutive Life Sentences for each Child. It is expected Clemans will never see freedom in his lifetime. Other persons in the Philippines were convicted in the same case.
General Child Protection in the Philippines
The Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development said in March of 2018 that it was surprised to learn of a report that came out on 26 March 2018 in the Philippine Daily Inquirer by Julie Alipala titled “Zamboanga phenomenon: 10-yr-olds giving birth” cited alarming statistics from the local health office in the city: 3,249 teenagers gave birth in Zamboanga in 2017 (52 girls gave birth at ages 10-13; 552 at ages 14-16 and 2,645 at ages 17-19). Local health sources also said that there were 410 mothers with ages 10-14 in 2016, while 558 were aged between 15 and 16. Those who gave birth at ages 17-19 numbered 2,118.
That begs the question: “Why didn’t the Manila-based government department know of these statistics which according to regional doctors are very common and likely understated? Said one who feared reprisals. “You hear reports regularly of fetuses floating down a stream and a bleed-out kid somewhere else. Where are the parents?” the doctor asked rhetorically.
In a couple of million cases, the mothers are outside the country working as overseas foreign workers, sending their money home. That is the mainstay of the Philippines economy.
That the government of the Philippines for decades and plus its various women’s groups and other NGOs have failed miserably in preventing sexual violence, there is no doubt based on preponderance of the crime.
Hence the HIV Epidemic and HBV Hyperendemic
- Why is the preponderance of child rape and incest spreading HIV and HBV so rapidly in the Philippines?
- HIV is not so hardy outside a host. It doesn’t survive long. It needs to be transmitted from blood stream to blood stream, ideally. Incest and rape of children is violent crime resulting in tearing tissue and opening up the bloodstream on both the rapist and the victim–the perfect host transfer for this virus. This bears repeating. Meanwhile HBV is not so fussy. The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is transmitted through blood and infected bodily fluids. It has up to a 100 times greater success rate of infecting its victims, but rape and incest crimes give it its best chance at a new life in a new body which it will kill eventually unless successfully treated.
- In the Philippines, microorganisms versus humans, the micros might be winning according to recent DoH statistics and the World Health Organization.
- “Because children are too small to have intercourse hence the victim and the attacker have tearing, rupturing or lesions opening both bloodstreams to an exchange of bodily fluids.” says Dr. Buni a surgeon in Syria specialized in war-time gender-based violence and other trauma.
- Rapists according to all accumulated data, rape often thus ensuring multiple infections especially if their victims are children. They rape the same victim often and rape many victims. They also have other consenting promiscuous partners who spread the virus once infected. Eight out of ten Philippines children say they have experienced sexual misconduct and roughly half the women say they have experienced sexual assault and rape. That does not say that eight out of ten men are perverts, it says that those who rape, rape many times which is the RINJ argument for longer prison terms (see below) for convicted rapists.
- Because the children and the rapists are having sexual contact with numerous victims and each victim with numerous rapists, the spread of HIV and HBV is accelerated.
- How do you know?
- Strains of HIV leave a signature. Tests sent out of the country to be evaluated in sophisticated labs can track this.
As referenced previously The RINJ Foundation urges these sentencing guidelines on conviction of a rapist. FPM.news found other agencies were suggesting the same general principals.
* Make all rapists and most attempted rapists subject to long indeterminate sentences (min. 5 years for ‘attempt rape’);
* Use prison terms ranging from 10 years to 30 years to life;
* Use life without parole for forcible rapes of victims under 14;
* Use a range of 7, 10, or 15-to-25 years for rapes of adult victims, while using a 30 to life term when a sexually violent repeat predator specification is proved;
* For 15-year + sentences, impose a mandatory release-review by the sentencing court, available after the minimum term is served, parallel to the Parole Board’s reviews. If either entity rejects release the term is extended by another year. On failing a review at that time, an application can be made each three years;
* For repeat violent offender penalties, increase the definite term to 20 years.
Definition of rape. From The RINJ Foundation, FBI, US DoJ and others.
Sexual penetration without consent is rape.
1. Rape
- Rape is the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.
2. Sexual Assault
- Sexual Assault is any forced, unwanted, non consensual sexual contact or activity. Physical contact of a sexual nature is a serious crime against the person. We tell children that nobody may contact you at the parts of the body covered by a swimming suit. That is s good thing to remember. Non-consented kissing is an assault and can be deemed a sexual assault as can be other activities. Some things you know but a judge must decide. What else happened? Be sure to completely describe events to law enforcement staff who attend on you.
3. Was I Raped?
- Around the world there is a great variance in the statutes and in common law in defining rape. Most laws require some form of penetration without consent before a charge is laid. That is the fundamental act of rape but the primary ingredient of the crime is lack of consent. Wherever you are, contact us if you need help. We have many doctors, lawyers and other professional volunteers some of whom may be near you.
- Even if you did not resist the sexual attack, or were intoxicated, or if you know the person who raped or sexually assaulted you, any forced, unwanted, non consensual sexual contact or activity is a sex crime (of at least sexual assault) and any form of penetration no matter how slight makes it a crime of rape. What to do if I have been raped.
- If someone has threatened, coerced, forced, intimidated, compelled you in any way to have intercourse (penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person), even if you were forced to say “yes”, you were raped. What to do.
- If you were asleep, intoxicated, incapacitated by other means, if there was penetration no matter how slight of your vagina or anus with any of the rapists body parts or any object, or oral penetration by a sex organ, it is a rape crime, regardless of your incapacitation. What to do if I have been raped.
- Unwanted sexual contact is a major assault crime, even if not rape (penetration). An act that threatens the safety of the person in any manner whatsoever, anywhere, is an assault, but based on the victim-impact-consequences a sexual assault can never be considered a summary/misdemeanor/minor crime. The safety of the person from this form of crime is an inalienable human right.
4. More About Consent
In the absence of clear, positive agreement for sexual contact there is no consent. Lack of consent is the crucial component of sex crime. Sexual conduct becomes criminal when sexual touch is not consented to, either because the offender forces another person to be sexual against his or her will, or because the other person is considered incapable of consent or to have a diminished mental capacity to give consent.
Those who are deemed incapable of consent include:
- minor children under the jurisdiction’s age of consent, regardless of their mental abilities to understand the nature of the act and their ability to refuse;
- a developmentally disabled person;
- someone who is mentally ill; and
- a person who is incapacitated, drugged, drunk, or unconscious or otherwise physically helpless.