Significant other

From Section 10 it became Section 2.7. And so finally that morning, after a long delay, we found ourselves right in the middle of the Bureaucracy, going over a Memorandum of Agreement (“henceforth referred to as MOA”), some preambulatory clauses, pertinent provisions, and a litany of technical terms.

I was with E. and N., leaders of an organization of Filipinos with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) that has been providing support to positive Pinoys. They were about to lose their office this year due to lack of funding, and since 2006 they’ve been trying to get the Department of Health to provide a little office space in one of its facilities for free. Their appeal went through a complete bureaucratic life cycle – it was approved in principle, was referred to several public health agencies and facilities, was suddenly denied, and was being re-considered. When Akbayan heard of the case, we brought it up in a congressional hearing, finally compelling the Department of Health to see if there’s a spare room that the organization could use. It was decided that a hospital in Manila would host the organization for the meantime.