Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said on Monday that HIV/AIDS is “more a crisis of values” rather “than a spread of virus.”
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president said that this is something to consider as people “attempt to solve HIV with solutions like condom distribution, with solutions like so-called safe sex.”
“Because when values are eroded and the human person is regarded as a thing from whom you can derive pleasure, whom you can use, whom you can pay, then you have a problem,” he said.
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) affects the immune system of a patient, making him or her vulnerable to infections. Meanwhile, AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) refers to advance stages of HIV infection.
Villegas acknowledged that the spread of HIV is not limited to “sexual misconduct.”
“You can also get HIV from other sources like needles. And sometimes people get infected by HIV without even engaging in something that is sinful,” he said.
HIV is usually transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse and transfusion of blood. It can also be transmitted between a mother and her child during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.
“So how do you handle a situation like that?” Villegas said it will still be about “values formation” or a “return to humanism, a return to ethics, a return to God.”
Officials of the CBCP have criticized the government’s plans to distribute condom in schools. They said it will only promote immorality.
At the same time, the World Health Organization has said that condoms, if used correctly and consistently, are “highly effective in preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI).” RAM