gay activists join anti-imperialist protests: VFA SUCKS

The militant and anti-imperialist Progressive Organization of Gays in the Philippines (Progay-Philippines) raised public health concerns when it joined the ranks of the Junk VFA movement and the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) in criticizing the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and mobilizing protest actions against it.

"The treaty compels the Philippines to allow all US military and civilian personnel to easily come and easily go, covered only by certificates of duty," said Oscar Atadero, Progay secretary general. "Nothing would prevent large numbers of highly mobile and transient foreign troops, spies and their sex-starved cronies from discharging not only their duties, their nuclear and bio-hazard wastes, but their bodily fluids as well."

Atadero is alluding to boorish behavior of thousands of American servicemen in the former baselands in Subic and Olongapo which bred the prostitution industry around the bases, rife with tales of young sex workers made to perform unprotected sexual acts on demand of the soldiers. He fears that the entire country will now be one big vice den where HIV/AIDS transmission will spread like wildfire among female sex workers.

An ensuing epidemic of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases among heterosexual men and women will likely bring false blame upon homosexual male behavior among Filipinos, and even provoke possible episodes of hysterical persecution of gays, he added.

Progay doubts that visiting forces will have been familiarized with safer sex specific to their gay personnel since the hierarchy in Pentagon does not want to officially recognize gay and lesbians among the ranks of the US armed forces.

Atadero is anxious local resources will once again shoulder the social costs of managing the risks caused by militarization at a time when the World Bank and the International Monetary (IMF) Fund are forcing government in the region to sell off public health programs. He revealed that setting up of HIV-awareness projects by the government's health department became suspect when secret plans to put up a major base for landing US warplanes and ships in Gen. Santos City, Mindanao, was unmasked by feminists.

"This is alarming given that the idea among bosses in the government and their arrogant foreign consultants of controlling HIV/AIDS transmission is bullying poor prostitutes for using their shrinking incomes to buy condoms instead of badly needed food. As a result, underpaid and overworked local doctors will be locked in a desperate battle to handle the flood of diseases bred by imperialist globalization, not only in the form of VFA but also sex tourism, labor-export policies and trade liberalization."

The activist group unveiled plans of joining this week's nationwide demonstrations together with the alliance Gays United to Wipe Out American Military Presence in the Philippines and Overseas (GUWAPO).###