MANILA, Philippines—The HIV hotline of party-list Akma-PTM was swamped with hundreds of calls within 24 hours of its launch last week, indicating a serious “thirst for information” among Filipinos on the dreaded infection.
Kevin Carreon, spokesman for Akma-PTM, said most of the callers were young people employed in industries outside the BPO (business process outsourcing) and call center sector which the party-list group represents.
Since Tuesday last week, calls topped more than 100 a day, Carreon said. Eighty percent of callers were male, from 15 to 49 years old, and only 10 percent were employed in the BPO and call center companies, where more than half of the country’s recorded HIV infections were reported to have occurred.
More than 500,000 young Filipinos are employed by call centers based in Metro Manila, Baguio, Metro Cebu, Davao, and Iloilo.
Akma-PTM launched the HIV hotline (546-0691) and Facebook account (Akma-PTM party-list) a week ago after a 20-year-old call center agent, speaking in a video-taped statement, disclosed that he was positive for HIV, the virus that attacks and weakens the human immune system.
Carreon said his group also received a number of overseas callers who learned of the hotline through the Akma-PTM Facebook account and website.
It's good that there's a hotline. I just hope that the agents, who handle the calls, are really knowledgeable about the topic.
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