National AIDS Sunday And World Day Of People With Disability

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has designated December 1 or the first Sunday of December as National AIDS Sunday.

Statistics are alarming. Google reports that as of September 2025, there is an average of 61% new cases reported daily, mostly male aged 15-34, transmitted through male to male sex.

The Philippines has become the fastest-growing HIV country in the Asia-Pacific region.

Late diagnosis due to social stigma, funding gaps, inadequate sexual education, ignorance of access to care, are some of the crises factors. So far, government responded with awareness drives, prevention education/funding, and global collaboration.

Well and good government initiatives. But all these are human interventions. The biggest areas of concern are moral and spiritual.

We have lost the sense of sin. Copied values and priorities from first world countries poison our Catholic values. DEATHS (Divorce, Euthanasia, Abortion, Total Fertility Control, Homosexual Unions, Same Sex Marriages) is ever so slowly being ensconced in our way of life. Everything easy and pleasurable are the order of the moment.

No longer as temples of The HOLY SPIRIT, we treat our bodies as mere flesh for worldly pleasures. With a sense of entitlement, we satisfy what our flesh demands as our right. We have forgotten that our true value, both spiritually and bodily, comes from every drop of Blood JESUS shed to ransom us. We have been fully paid, we are not our own. We are the LORD’s.

This Advent’s sacred waiting is a time to open our hearts to GOD’s conviction, conversion, then healing and wholeness. As we rediscover our value and potential in The Heart of GOD, whether as a person living with AIDS/ HIV, or someone disabled, let us prepare for the coming of JESUS, and the miracles that are sure to follow.