SAN PEDRO, LAGUNA?Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral said she would continue distributing condoms until June 30 or until her term ends despite calls from Catholic bishops to remove her from office.

?I serve at the pleasure of the President,? Cabral told reporters after the inauguration of a new government hospital in Barangay Narra here Sunday.

She said her term was coterminous with the President.

?By July 1, the [new] president is entitled to appoint his own secretary of health,? she said.

Cabral said the thrust of the government?s nationwide information drive to fight the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), is the ABC campaign that has three components?abstinence, being faithful and the use of contraceptives.

?The third comes in if you can?t practice abstinence or fidelity,? she said.

Cabral said there were 4,400 registered cases of HIV in the country?an alarming 100-percent increase since 2008.

She said the department started ?counting? the HIV cases in 1984 and noticed that the number had doubled in the last five years.

The government?s distribution of condoms on Valentine?s Day drew the ire of Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, and Bishops Dinualdo Gutierrez and Arturo Bastes from Marbel and Sorsogon, respectively. The prelates called for Cabral?s resignation.

Meanwhile, Akma-Partido Tinig ng Masa, a party-list group of call center agents, Monday called attention to the rising incidence of HIV-AIDS cases in its ranks.

Citing government statistics, Akma-PTM said about 50 percent of the estimated 5,000 HIV-AIDS cases in the country were workers in the call center industry, many of them unaware of the dangers of the sexually transmitted virus.