Philippines Health

The 18-year-old bar girl said she wanted to kill herself, so Richard Gordon, the mayor of this city outside the U.S. naval base, produced his 9-millimeter automatic, placed it in front of her and said, "OK, go ahead." The girl, one of 26 AIDS victims in Olongapo, studied the gun for a moment and then broke down. She and the mayor ended the session in a tearful embrace. But Gordon knew he had not gotten through to her. That was 30 days ago. Finally, on Tuesday morning, Gordon reached her.

When newly elected Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos unexpectedly named Juan M. Flavier as his secretary of health last summer, most Manila newspapers had no clipping files or photos of the little-known doctor. They were in for a surprise. Today, the 57-year-old rural health expert is arguably the country's most controversial figure.

The children of Negros are still starving to death--490 of them last year, according to government figures. The deaths continue even though tens of millions of dollars in international aid have been spent on the problem in the last two years. Teresita Tiangao's experience tells why. The other day she sat with her two children in the malnutrition ward of a hospital overflowing with critical cases, and she talked about her troubles.

The last thing Fai Charoenkul ever expected was that she would become a symbol of the scourge of Asia. A mere 15 years old, the shy, slender Fai is already married. She now appears regularly on Thai television to explain how her life was transformed when she found out in September that she had tested positive for HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, which leads to the killer disease AIDS. "I realized that all my dreams would never come true," Fai said in a recent interview with The Times.

Asia is likely to fall victim within the next five years to an AIDS epidemic as disastrous and deadly as the one that has ravaged much of Africa unless governments radically improve health standards and public-health education, an international authority on AIDS said here Tuesday. Speaking at the First International Congress on AIDS in Asia, Dr.

Sometime in February, 1986, the Philippine Health Department discovered that Christy was infected with AIDS. But when health workers went back to the go-go bar where the 20-year-old prostitute had been tested just a few days earlier, Christy was gone. She had moved to another of the dozens of sleazy strip joints and nightclubs that cater to the thousands of U.S. Navy personnel stationed at Subic Bay Naval Base in the city of Olongapo, north of Manila.

Thousands of U.S. Navy personnel recently disembarked from the battleship Missouri and its support ships at Subic Bay Naval Base north of Manila for rest and relaxation before steaming off to the Persian Gulf war zone, where underwater mines have proven to be a hazard. In doing so, the men were entering a danger zone of a different kind, one where the menace is AIDS, according to Lt. Cmdr. Thomas O'Rourke, a 34-year-old Navy physician.

In all his years as a family physician in Redlands, Calif., Dr. Steve Peterson had never seen anything like Tondo General Hospital. Until Monday, Peterson had never seen surgery performed in a dingy hallway outside an operating room already full and unable to accommodate even patients who were dying. He had never seen a hospital so poor that it must wash and recycle surgical gloves and must sometimes delay urgent surgery because there are no gloves.

U.S. servicemen and women are exempt from a new rule requiring foreigners entering the Philippines for long stays to show they are free of AIDS, the Philippine immigration commission said. Americans assigned to Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base were exempted when Washington assured Manila that military personnel are tested for acquired immune deficiency syndrome before being sent overseas. Some diplomats, international aid workers and non-government employees were also exempted.

The U.S. government has failed to deliver millions of dollars in critically needed medical aid that President Reagan promised the Philippine armed forces when he met with President Corazon Aquino last September. As of Tuesday, less than a third of the $10 million in medical aid that the Reagan Administration pledged as an emergency military appropriation had actually arrived in Manila, according to records at Philippine military headquarters. And the $2.

In an effort to avoid federal prosecution, former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his associates are involved in a well-orchestrated campaign to give the perception that he is sick and near death and thus unable to travel to New York to face arraignment. The campaign is meant to gain the sympathy of the American and Filipino publics--and not necessarily in that order.

U.S. servicemen and women are exempt from a new rule requiring foreigners entering the Philippines for long stays to show they are free of AIDS, the Philippine immigration commission said. Americans assigned to Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base were exempted when Washington assured Manila that military personnel are tested for acquired immune deficiency syndrome before being sent overseas. Some diplomats, international aid workers and non-government employees were also exempted.

The 18-year-old bar girl said she wanted to kill herself, so Richard Gordon, the mayor of this city outside the U.S. naval base, produced his 9-millimeter automatic, placed it in front of her and said, "OK, go ahead." The girl, one of 26 AIDS victims in Olongapo, studied the gun for a moment and then broke down. She and the mayor ended the session in a tearful embrace. But Gordon knew he had not gotten through to her. That was 30 days ago. Finally, on Tuesday morning, Gordon reached her.

Asia is likely to fall victim within the next five years to an AIDS epidemic as disastrous and deadly as the one that has ravaged much of Africa unless governments radically improve health standards and public-health education, an international authority on AIDS said here Tuesday. Speaking at the First International Congress on AIDS in Asia, Dr.

Thousands of U.S. Navy personnel recently disembarked from the battleship Missouri and its support ships at Subic Bay Naval Base north of Manila for rest and relaxation before steaming off to the Persian Gulf war zone, where underwater mines have proven to be a hazard. In doing so, the men were entering a danger zone of a different kind, one where the menace is AIDS, according to Lt. Cmdr. Thomas O'Rourke, a 34-year-old Navy physician.

Antonio Torino had no idea that he was signing his baby's death warrant two years ago when a friend persuaded him to open an illegal gold refinery in his basement. By the time the poison gases filled his son's tiny lungs two weeks ago, choking him and sending him into wild convulsions, Torino knew well that for months he had been balancing death with profit in his crumbling, clapboard house.

The last thing Fai Charoenkul ever expected was that she would become a symbol of the scourge of Asia. A mere 15 years old, the shy, slender Fai is already married. She now appears regularly on Thai television to explain how her life was transformed when she found out in September that she had tested positive for HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, which leads to the killer disease AIDS. "I realized that all my dreams would never come true," Fai said in a recent interview with The Times.

Antonio Torino had no idea that he was signing his baby's death warrant two years ago when a friend persuaded him to open an illegal gold refinery in his basement. By the time the poison gases filled his son's tiny lungs two weeks ago, choking him and sending him into wild convulsions, Torino knew well that for months he had been balancing death with profit in his crumbling, clapboard house.

The children of Negros are still starving to death--490 of them last year, according to government figures. The deaths continue even though tens of millions of dollars in international aid have been spent on the problem in the last two years. Teresita Tiangao's experience tells why. The other day she sat with her two children in the malnutrition ward of a hospital overflowing with critical cases, and she talked about her troubles.

Sometime in February, 1986, the Philippine Health Department discovered that Christy was infected with AIDS. But when health workers went back to the go-go bar where the 20-year-old prostitute had been tested just a few days earlier, Christy was gone. She had moved to another of the dozens of sleazy strip joints and nightclubs that cater to the thousands of U.S. Navy personnel stationed at Subic Bay Naval Base in the city of Olongapo, north of Manila.