Stigma is the thing that kills. When we ostracize, we build walls between people and the help they need.
Each year, the living gather to remember those taken by HIV/AIDS — and Baguio City, nestled in the Philippine highlands, has kept that vigil for 41 years. This May, beneath lanterns shaped like mythical birds and among the quiet movement of figures in traditional dress, the city renewed its commitment not only to memory but to medicine and mercy. The numbers in the region are climbing again, reaching younger and younger lives, and so the ceremony carries a double weight: grief for the past and urgency for the present. What is being mourned is not only the dead, but the silence and stigma that continue to cost lives long after the science has offered a way forward.
- HIV infections in the Baguio region are no longer holding steady — teenagers as young as 15 are now appearing in treatment records, signaling a troubling downward shift in the age of infection.
- The city's 41st memorial drew healthworkers and bar employees alike into Malcolm Square, where lanterns and candlelight transformed a public health crisis into a shared act of communal mourning.
- Of the 1,428 patients treated in the region since 1984, 79 have died — and with Baguio alone accounting for 761 known cases, the epidemic remains a living, local reality rather than a distant statistic.
- Performer and advocate Joseph Leo stood before the crowd and declared what modern medicine has confirmed: an undetectable viral load means untransmissible, and HIV is no longer a death sentence — but stigma still is.
- The ceremony is being used as a platform to dismantle the shame that drives people away from testing and treatment, with advocates arguing that prejudice, not the virus, remains the most dangerous force in the room.
On a Thursday night in May, Malcolm Square in Baguio City filled with an unexpected brightness. Japanese geishas moved through the crowd, and above them, Ibong Adarna lanterns — shaped after the mythical bird of Filipino folklore — cast their glow across gathered faces. Healthworkers and employees from local bars had come together for a parade and candlelit ceremony, part of the city's 41-year tradition of marking the International AIDS Memorial. Baguio had chosen to light its candles early, to honor the dead and to speak once more about a virus that has not stopped spreading.
The regional numbers carry a particular weight. Since 1984, 79 people have died from HIV-related illness among the 1,428 patients treated by the Department of Health in the Baguio area. More alarming is the direction the data is moving: teenagers as young as 15 are now appearing in treatment rosters, and while young adults between 24 and 34 remain the largest group, the age of infection is dropping. Baguio holds 761 of the region's known cases, with neighboring provinces accounting for hundreds more. Dr. Celia Brillantes, the City Health Services Officer, framed the memorial as both an act of public memory and a tool of public health — a way of pushing back against the silence that allows the virus to spread.
Joseph Leo, who performs as drag queen Sagada Arabica, stood before the crowd and spoke from his own experience. He described carrying both an Igorot and a queer identity in a culture that had told him these were incompatible, and he spoke about his own HIV diagnosis and the shame society had layered onto it. But he also delivered a message grounded in science: with proper medication, HIV becomes undetectable, and when undetectable, it cannot be transmitted. The virus, he said, could be lived with.
What could not be managed, Leo insisted, was stigma. When communities treat a diagnosis as a verdict rather than a medical condition, they build walls between the sick and the care they need. The candles being lit, he said, were not only for the dead — they were against the silence, against the indifference, against the prejudice that had claimed lives not through the virus itself but through the refusal to help. He closed by naming himself: still here, still standing, still beautiful. The memorial would continue. So would the rising numbers. But so, too, would the voices refusing to let shame have the final word.
On a Thursday night in May, Baguio City's Malcolm Square filled with an unexpected brightness. Japanese geishas moved through the crowd in their traditional dress. Above them, Ibong Adarna lanterns—those mythical bird-shaped lights from Filipino folklore—cast their glow across the gathered faces. Healthworkers and employees from local bars had come together for a parade and candlelit ceremony, part of the city's 41-year tradition of marking the International AIDS Memorial. The date would be May 17, but Baguio had decided to light its candles early, to honor the dead and to speak, once more, about a virus that refuses to stop killing.
Since 1983, when the first cases were recorded globally, the memorial has grown into a worldwide ritual of remembrance. In Baguio and the surrounding mountain region, the numbers tell a particular story. From 1984 through the end of last year, 79 people died from HIV-related illness among the 1,428 patients the Department of Health had treated. The virus had not slowed. In fact, it was accelerating in unexpected directions. Teenagers as young as 15 were now showing up in treatment rosters. Young adults between 24 and 34 remained the largest group, but the age of infection was dropping, and that fact alone had begun to alarm the medical community.
Baguio itself held 761 of the region's known HIV cases. The nearby provinces of Benguet and Abra carried another 396 between them. These were not abstract numbers. They were neighbors, family members, people who had walked the same streets, attended the same schools, worked in the same businesses. Dr. Celia Brillantes, the City Health Services Officer, understood that the memorial served a dual purpose: it honored those who had died, but it also pushed back against the silence that had allowed the virus to spread unchecked. The ceremony was, in her framing, an act of public health and public memory at once.
Joseph Leo stood before the crowd that night. By day he works in health advocacy. By night, he performs as Sagada Arabica, a drag queen whose art is itself a form of resistance. He spoke about what it meant to carry an Igorot identity and a queer identity in a culture that had taught him these things were incompatible. He spoke about his own diagnosis, about the weight of shame that society had placed on those three letters—H, I, V—as though they were a verdict rather than a medical fact. But he also spoke about something the science had changed: HIV was no longer a death sentence. With proper medication, the virus could become undetectable. And when undetectable, it could not be transmitted. The virus could be managed. It could be lived with.
What could not be managed, Leo insisted, was stigma. Stigma was the thing that actually killed. When communities turned away from people living with HIV, when they treated the diagnosis as a mark of shame rather than a medical condition, they built walls between the sick and the care they needed. He had felt those walls in his own culture, in his own family, in the way his difference had been treated as a defect rather than a variation of human experience. The candles they were lighting, he said, were not just for the dead. They were against the silence. They were against the indifference. They were meant to burn away the prejudice that had claimed so many lives not through the virus itself, but through the refusal to help.
He ended by naming himself: still here, still standing, still breathing, still beautiful. It was a statement of fact and an act of defiance. The memorial would continue. The cases would continue to rise. But so would the voices refusing to let the virus, or the shame around it, have the final word.
Citas Notables
HIV is no longer a life sentence. It is a manageable condition. With the right medicine and proper care, we reach a state called undetectable. And undetectable equals untransmissible.— Joseph Leo, performer and health advocate
To end the stigma, a kind word can be just as life-saving as a pill. Realize that being an Igorot and being LGBTQ are not in conflict. They are both parts of a beautiful complex identity.— Joseph Leo
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does Baguio need its own memorial ceremony? Isn't May 17 enough?
Because the virus doesn't wait for a calendar date. Baguio has 761 cases right now. The ceremony is partly about honoring the dead, but it's also about breaking the silence in a specific place where people know each other, where stigma is still very real.
The article mentions teenagers as young as 15 getting infected. That's a shift, isn't it?
It is. The largest group is still young adults in their late twenties and thirties, but the fact that we're seeing 15-year-olds in treatment rosters means the virus is reaching people who should have had access to prevention, education, protection. Something in the system is failing them.
Joseph Leo talks about stigma being "the thing that kills." But isn't the virus the thing that kills?
Not anymore, not in the way it used to. With modern medication, HIV is manageable. People can live full lives. But if stigma keeps them from seeking treatment, from being honest with partners, from accessing care—then yes, stigma becomes the actual killer. The virus becomes secondary.
He mentions being Igorot and LGBTQ as though those identities are in tension. Are they?
In his experience, yes. He's describing a cultural context where being different in multiple ways compounds the isolation. You're not just queer; you're queer in a community that may not have language or acceptance for that. Add a diagnosis on top of that, and the weight becomes crushing.
What does the Ibong Adarna imagery add to this memorial?
It's a Filipino mythological bird—a symbol of hope and transformation in local culture. Using it alongside Japanese geishas creates this hybrid space where the memorial isn't just Western AIDS activism. It's rooted in the actual place, the actual people who live there.