Fwd: PH: Aids role model falls from grace (BKKPost)

[Alex G Bardsley]

X-URL: http://www.bangkokpost.net/today/1701_news24.html

January 17, 1997
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BANGKOK POST
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FEATURE / SCANDAL
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Aids role model falls from grace

She was the first person in the Philippines to admit to having Aids,
and she's in the spotlight again for having fallen pregnant to her
16-year-old lover.
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CECILIA QUIAMBAO
Manila
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Sarah Jane Salazar, the straight- talking, tattooed young woman who
brought home the horrors of Aids to Philippine living rooms, has
shocked her country a second time by announcing she was three months
pregnant by a boyfriend barely out of grade school.
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The former prostitute, now 22, was hailed by the government as an
unlikely heroine in 1994 when she made a courageous decision to become
the first person in the Philippines to go on record as having the
dreaded Acquired Immune Eficiency Syndrome (Aids).
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The provincial lass, who ventured into the flesh trade as a teenager
out of poverty, was rewarded a government salary for a job to educate
her countrymen on the dangers of the incurable virus, which medical
experts say threatens the entire country.
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The state's and the public's compassion did not last long, though,
because, by all accounts. Sarah Jane soon became the opposite of the
good role model she had become.
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Sarah Jane met a 16-year-old truant, Richie "Che-Che" Atizado, became
his partner in unprotected sex, and demanded a separate room for him
and her at a Health Department-run halfway house for Aids sufferers.
When the government baulked, she ran away to live in with her toy boy.
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The Sarah Jane saga transfixed the nation, which was horrified at the
possible consequences. Some government officials want her to be locked
up for being a menace to general health, and the boy's parents filed
suit to retain custody of their son, who was by law still a minor. The
boy has refused, saying he was aware of her condition and was ready to
suffer the consequences for "love".
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A Manila tabloid described the tumultuous relationship as "The Journey
of Death".
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The Aids icon became a pariah in the depressed district of Pasay,
where she rented an apartment. She quarreled with and bit a neighbour,
and reportedly threatened to indiscriminately inject people with a
needle spiked with her blood.
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Atizado's mother charged that Sarah Jane deliberately scratched her
son in the face during their quarrels to infect him with the disease.
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Last month, sobered up by crisis and minus her nose ring, the prodigal
daughter returned to the halfway house, called Bahay Lingap, to
announced her pregnancy.
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"We thought about my having an abortion, but the doctors said it could
even make my condition worse. So I decided to keep it," Sarah Jane
announced on nationwide television.
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Government doctors say Atizado has so far tested negative for the
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes Aids, but they are not
letting down their guard. Since the lovers have returned to the
halfway house, they have scheduled a third Aids test for him in March.
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Even so, Health Secretary Carmencita Reodica is furious.
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"Her being pregnant proved" that she did not exercise caution, she
said.
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While Sarah Jane also had a right to a "full and satisfying sex life",
she was being "irresponsible" because she did not protect her partner
and the child she might bear, said Ms Reodica.
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"Right from the start, she knew the consequences of her action - that
her baby can have Aids."
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Sarah Jane has a six-year-old daughter from a previous relationship,
but the girl has so far tested negative for Aids.
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The presidential palace stepped into the controversy in October when
President Fidel Ramos's legal adviser, Renato Cayetano, advised the
health secretary to obtain a court order to detain Sarah Jane.
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"If she will not voluntarily confine herself to a hospital or private
place, my suggestion to Secretary Reodica is to seek the assistance of
government lawyers and file a case to have her confined," he said.
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He said there were legal precedents for court-ordered confinement for
an Aids carrier who has occasional sex with individuals who do not
know the sufferer constituted a public threat.
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The legal poser is a potentially explosive issue in a contentious
democracy like the Philippines, whose citizens are even now opposing a
national identification card system which critics say would impinge on
their constitutional rights.
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Ms Reodica has admitted she had sought a legal opinion, but there
seems to be no need for the court action at this point.
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The Sarah Jane saga however has serious implications in the
archipelago of 70 million people, where the median age is at the
sexually active line of below 30.
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While quarantined by vast expanses of water, the isolation no longer
works in the modern age. The population is highly mobile, with at
least four million Filipinos working overseas.
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Officially, just 841 people have tested positive for HIV in the
Philippines, with 152 deaths. However, the government has no
nationwide testing system, and experts say the actual number could
well be at least 10 times higher.
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Prostitution is illegal in the Philippines, but it is difficult to
secure convictions unless offenders are caught in the act.
Heterosexual sex is the main mode of Aids transmission and condoms,
promoted here both as a contraceptive and as protection for Aids, are
not very popular with the dominant Roman Catholic church actively
campaigning against artificial contraceptives.
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According to Edna Santiago, the government doctor assigned to the AIDS
wing of the government's San Lazaro Hospital, Sarah Jane's pregnancy
is apparently proceeding normally.
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"She remains healthy and we are giving her vitamins for herself and
for the foetus," she said.
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The teenage boyfriend is now receiving counselling on his
responsibilities as a would-be father, said the doctor.
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Sarah Jane "told us this (her pregnancy) was the Will of God so it
should not be aborted", said Dr Santiago.
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=A9 The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. All rights reserved 1997
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