David's POZ Blog

One does not begin to understand the true meaning of the phrase “the reek of humanity” until one has stepped foot into the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center in Cebu City, Philippines. Imagine ten men in a crumbling cell meant for one. Imagine an overwhelming stench of human filth that seeps through your pores. Imagine the smell of shit, sweat and fear that has dried up without escape through any circulation channels. It is a smell that is not forgotten easily. It is the smell that I endure every waking hour. I am here, in this concrete hell, gasping for what little air exists in this thick tropical foulness, because I have HIV and I lied about it.

It began innocently enough. We met online on a dating site for men and women living with the virus. It was love at first email, each exchange more intimate than the next. We wrote about our lives, our loves and the losses that we lived through. We wrote about the losses that we did not, and the hope that we both shared that we could spend the rest of our lives togther, in peace and love and comfort, on her paradise island in the Philippine Sea.

She came to me the next month. August of that year. From the other side of the world, she flew into my arms. She was The One I’d been waiting for.

We made love in her hotel room. We talked for hours about her family in Spain, and my family - or what was left of it - back in Ohio. We made plans.

At the end of the week I drove her back to JFK for the long flight back to her home. We kissed and cried as we waited for the boarding call.

“It may take a month to put all of my affairs in order”, I said, “ but I’ll do whatever I have to do. I’ll sell my things. I’ll see if my doctor will send me whatever I need. Whatever it takes.”

She turned away and left.

I went to the Philippine consulate, on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 45th and 46th Streets. I rode the elevator to the third floor, where a consular official told me what documents I would need to visit the Philippines for more than 59 days: proof that I could afford to live there; my last tax returns.

“For those intending to stay more than 60 days”, the visa application form read, “ you must require a medical certification.”

A medical certification?

The form was ominous. “State whether the applicant has any of the following dangerous contageous diseases: Chancroid, Gonorrhea, Leprosy (infectious stage), Tuberculosis (active), AIDS”

AIDS?

Screw the form. I decided to lie.

And so lie I did. Instead of declaring the truth on the paper form, I flew to my island love and entered the country on a 21 day tourist visa - no application required. At the end of those 21 days, I travelled by boat to Manilla, where I extended my “temporary” stay for another 59 days. And another after that. Until they came for me.

There were two of them. They tore through our beach house in the dawn light. Two Filipino customs officers looking for me - the American “tourist” with HIV who had lied on a paper form so that he could spend his days on their island.

She begged and cried as they dragged me outside in the early morning sunlight.

“Please, please, I have money” she said, “ I can pay you.”

But they didn’t care. I was a criminal, they said. A dangerous criminal with an infectious disease. I did not belong on their beautiful island. They threw me into the lorry, my arms twisted behind me and chained to an iron rail. For the lie that I had told...