Tuesday, December 05, 2006 Capillas: The Aids story By Stephen Capillas The Lowdown
MIGHT as well join in the promotion of the Christmas lanterns being sold in the Provincial Jail compound by calling on people through this column to buy their own in time for the Yuletide season.
After all, by buying one, he or she can help in his/her small way the many inmates who have invested so much time, effort and money to earn extra for themselves and their families for the Christmas season. These lanterns are just as good as those being sold elsewhere and the craftsmanship is considerable.
And this is one way of giving oneself to others in this supposed time for charity and benevolence towards fellow Filipinos. So try to convince the husband and wife to buy a Christmas lantern for the family from the Provincial Compound. It's not much, but the help is greatly appreciated.
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Mayor Vicente Emano's disclosure that the city government is monitoring the presence of a young urban professional who supposedly suffers from Aids only shows the amount of ignorance residents here in this part of the country have towards the disease and the ways of dealing with it.
But then one can hardly be surprised about this when one takes into consideration the panicked approach City Hall assumed when dealing with reports that a person with SARS had reportedly been admitted inside the Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC).
When the City Government insisted that the woman patient be transferred, then PNP-10 Regional Director Rabe put his foot down and had the patient remain at the Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC) for treatment.
Eventually the police regional director got shipped out but not without standing up before the city government and even Emano was seen keeping his distance over the official's transfer.
Much needs to be done to educate the public not to shun Aids-infected people like they were the worst criminals to be born on the earth. While the disease is incurable as of late, prevention can be done to avoid being infected and it doesn't mean having to isolate the infected person since he or she can still operate as a productive member of society.
The lessons of superstar athlete Magic Johnson and others should serve to remind us but officials with parochial mindsets apparently think otherwise.
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