MANILA (UCAN) -- "At the end of our journey, we will face our creator; we need you to help prepare us," Noel, an HIV-positive person, shared at the launch of a manual on HIV and AIDS.

Bishop Precioso Cantillas (center), hands over the training Manual to Father Savino Bernardi (right) as UNAIDS Country Coordinator Teresita Marie Bagasao looks on.

Noel, 43, was one of about 50 people who attended the July 11 launch of the two-volume Training Manual on HIV and AIDS for Catholic Church Pastoral Workers. UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, developed the manual with Catholic Philippine institutions.

The crowd at the launch, held at the College of the Holy Spirit in downtown Manila, comprised mostly nuns, social-action workers in Catholic institutions, priests, and workers in government and NGO-run programs for people with HIV and AIDS.

Noel, one of many who welcomed the publication, shared that since many of the people ministering to those who develop AIDS are Religious, boosting the Philippine Church's response is important. He cited the Daughters of Charity (DC) Sisters "at the bedside of our peers" in hospitals.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) usually leads to AIDS, which is almost always fatal.

Noel said he hoped the "commitment" Church people showed in the development of the manual would be "sustained." The process to fight HIV and AIDS "does not lie in the book alone," he stressed.

The manual includes an Instructional Guide and a Resource Book.

The Instructional Guide contains modules for 18 sessions designed to run between one and two hours. These include topics such as attitudes toward infection, HIV testing and the loss of peace, respect, hope and loved ones due to HIV and AIDS.

The manual also provides statistics. As of 2005, a recorded 38.6 million people were living with HIV worldwide -- 12 percent of them were less than 15 years old -- and 2.8 million had died of AIDS. Of those infected, 4.1 million were new cases.

The Philippine Health Department AIDS registry has recorded 2,719 cases in the Philippines 1984-2006. Returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) accounted for 35 percent of the cases, but the manual's Resource Book points out that other sectors do not have mandatory HIV-antibody testing.

Genesis Samonte of the National Epidemiology Center noted in her presentation that 68 percent of HIV-positive people in the Philippines were infected through sexual contact, 56 percent having been involved in homosexual activity.

Scalabrini Father Edwin Corros, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care for Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI), who coordinated the project, stressed at the launch that statistics were not the manual's main concern.

Rather, he said, pastoral workers persevered in producing a guide they hoped would help change the way people understand and feel about HIV, AIDS and people living with these. He described their discussions over more than two years as "not that easy."

"Most material on fighting HIV and AIDS focuses on prevention through condoms" and caused a "problem," the priest said.

The Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms.

Towards the project's end, a "smaller" group of 24 priests, nuns and laypeople ministering to those living with HIV and AIDS or to sectors vulnerable to such infection participated in the 2006 test-run of the instruction guide.

In his message in the manual, Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo of Jaro writes, "On behalf of the CBCP, I endorse the (manual)" and pray for "concerted campaigns" to "help us make our families and society healthier."

The manual also contains a message from Father Robert Vitillo, special adviser on HIV and AIDS for Geneva-based Caritas Internationalis, who reviewed the book. Caritas Internationalis is a worldwide confederation of Catholic charities.

During the launch, Teresita Bagasao, UNAIDS country coordinator in the Philippines, handed a copy of the manual to ECMI chairman Bishop Precioso Cantillas of Maasin; Scalabrini Father Savino Bernardi, Manila director and national coordinator of the Apostleship of the Sea; representatives of Religious sisters, government and NGO program leaders and workers; a student council president; and the media.

Catholic Relief Services Philippines representative Michael Frank also signed a memorandum of agreement for a UNAIDS grant for training programs in Philippine dioceses and Basic Ecclesial Communities using the manual.

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