BAGUIO CITY, Philippine -- Senator Richard Gordon, Bagumbayan presidential candidate, tried hard not to campaign during a meeting of Philippine National Red Cross volunteers here on Saturday where he advocated safe sex to help clean up the country's blood banks.

Gordon, also PNRC chair, said he was being "liberal" in his pitch for safe sex because the PNRC has been alerted to the reported increase in HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infections in the country.

Gordon met the volunteers on Saturday night after he watched the 15th Panagbenga (Baguio Flower Festival) street dancing parades earlier in the day.

He asked his volunteers to pull down a Bagumbayan campaign streamer featuring his image and vice presidential candidate Bayani Fernando, which was put up at the center of the Baguio Country Club ballroom.

But the replacement streamer still bore Gordon's portrait.

"I am sorry. That [campaign streamer] was not supposed to be there? I am not a candidate of the Red Cross," he said.

But he received an endorsement from some of the volunteers. Restaurant owner Lourdes Ng asked the group to vote for Gordon and Fernando, who was seated nearby.

He said the group met here to discuss the quality of blood collected in the Philippines, owing to the latest Department of Health report on the increase in HIV cases in the country.

Department of Health officials earlier engaged the Catholic Church in a debate over the government's endorsement of condoms to stop the growth in HIV cases from 528 patients in 2008 to 709 in 2009.

Gordon said the PNRC has started looking for machines that would cut down the time it would take for blood chemistry to be analyzed in the Philippines.

A complete laboratory blood test that should detect HIV strains usually took a month, which impaired the PNRC's ability to quickly and efficiently collect and distribute blood, he said.

"We want to cut the month (time it takes to analyze and process blood) to a week," Gordon said.

He said the PNRC plans to distribute the machines as soon as it is able to build more blood banks in every town.

But the heart of a "clean blood" campaign is safe sex, according to Gordon.