A Philippine AIDS carrier's fall from grace

MANILA (JP): Sarah Jane Salazar, the straight-talking, tattooed young woman who brought home the horrors of AIDS to Philippine living rooms, shocked her country a second time by announcing she was three months pregnant by a boyfriend barely out of grade school.

The former prostitute, now 22, was hailed by the government as an unlikely heroine in 1994, when she made a courageous decision to become the first person in the Philippines to go on record as having the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

The provincial lass who, as a teenager, ventured into the flesh trade out of poverty, was rewarded a government salary for a job to educate her countrymen on the danger of the incurable virus, which medical experts say threatens the entire country.

The state's and public's compassion did not last long, however, because, by all accounts, Salazar soon became the opposite of the good role model she was known as.

Salazar met a 16-year-old truant, Richie "Che-che" Atizado, who became her partner in unprotected sex and demanded a separate room for himself and her at a Health Department-run halfway house for AIDS sufferers. When the government balked, she ran away to live with her boy toy.

The Salazar saga transfixed the nation, which was horrified at the possible consequences. Some government officials want her to be locked up for being a menace to general health, and the boy's parents filed suit to retain custody of their son, who was by law still a minor. The boy has refused, saying he was aware of her condition and was ready to suffer the consequences for "love".

A Manila tabloid described the tumultuous relationship as "The Journey of Death."

The AIDS icon became a pariah in the depressed district of Pasay, where she rented an apartment, quarreled with and bit a neighbor, and reportedly threatened to indiscriminately inject people with a needle spiked with her blood.

Atizado's mother charged that Salazar deliberately scratched her son in the face during their quarrels to infect him with the disease.

Last month, sobered up by crisis and minus her nose ring, the prodigal daughter returned to the halfway house, called Bahay Lingap, to announce her pregnancy.

"We thought about my having an abortion, but the doctors said it could even make my condition worse. So I decided to keep it," Salazar announced on nationwide television.

Government doctors say Atizado has so far tested negative for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) which causes AIDS, but they are not letting down their guard. Since the lovers have returned to the halfway house, they have scheduled a third AIDS test for him in March.

Even so, Secretary of Health Carmencita Reodica is furious.

"Her being pregnant proved" that she did not exercise caution, she said.

While Salazar also had a right to a "full and satisfying sex life," she was being "irresponsible" because she did not protect her partner and the child she might bear, Reodica added.

"Right from the start, she knew the consequences of her action -- that her baby could have AIDS."

Salazar has a six-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, but the girl has so far tested negative for AIDS.

The presidential palace stepped into the controversy in October when President Fidel Ramos' legal adviser, Renato Cayetano, advised the health secretary to obtain a court order to detain Salazar.

"If she will not voluntarily confine herself to a hospital or private place, my suggestion to secretary Reodica is to seek the assistance of (government lawyers) and file a case to have her confined," he said.

He said there were legal precedents for court-ordered confinement concerning an AIDS carrier who has occasional sex with individuals who do not know the sufferer constituted a public threat.

The legal poser is a potentially explosive issue in a contentious democracy like the Philippines, whose citizens are even now opposing a national identification card system which critics say would impinge on their constitutional rights.

Reodica has admitted she had sought a legal opinion, but there seems to be no need for court action at this point.

The Salazar saga, however, has serious implications in the archipelago of 70 million people, where the median age is at the sexually active line, below 30.

While quarantined by vast expanses of water, the isolation no longer works in the modern age. The population is highly mobile, with at least four million Filipinos working overseas.

Officially, only 841 people have tested positive for HIV in the Philippines, with 152 deaths. However, the government has no nationwide testing system, and experts say the actual number could well be at least 10 times higher.

Prostitution is illegal in the Philippines, but it is difficult to secure convictions unless offenders are caught in the act. Heterosexual sex is the main mode of AIDS transmission and condoms, promoted here both as a contraceptive and as protection against AIDS, is not very popular with the dominant Roman Catholic Church, who is actively campaigning against artificial contraceptives.

According to Edna Santiago, the government doctor assigned to the AIDS wing of the government's San Lazaro Hospital, Salazar's pregnancy is apparently proceeding normally.

"She remains healthy and we are giving her vitamins for herself and for the fetus," she said.

Her teenage boyfriend is now getting counseling on his responsibilities as a would-be father, the doctor said.

Salazar "told us this (her pregnancy) was the Will of God, so it should not be aborted," Santiago said.