About AIDS

I think I need to share with you guys a comment I made on Mark Shea's blog:

Mark:

I'm a Filipino, but I wasn't keenly aware of how low the number of HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines is, so I actually thought that the figures you posted may have been inaccurate, so I did my own research on the matter.

It turns out that AIDS cases are indeed so scarce and rare in my country. Data from the UNICEF shows that less than half of 1% of our population is actually infected.

A local non-governmental agency, also noted the scarcity of AIDS cases in the country and noted several reasons for it. The last one would interest you most:

1) Female sex workers (FSWs) in the Philippines have less sexual partners.
2) Filipino males have less exposure to FSWs.
3) Non ulcerative type of sexually transmittable diseases (STDs).
4) Filipino men who have sex with men (MSMs) engage more in oral sex than in anal sex.
5) There are fewer injecting drug users in the Philippines.
6) Most Filipino males are circumcised.
7) Delayed first sexual contact/marriage.

This ought to be treated as good news, but the local media hasn't really reported on this phenomenon and still sticks to the old line on how the AIDS crisis is about to hit the country and that we must be ready with our condoms to defeat it. The same news article you linked appeared in the local tv station's website but they don't seem to have an archive for me to link it.

This case however has really made me appreciate more the Church's teachings on sexual morality: not only does it set us free, it also saves lives.