Study on Safe Spaces for HIV Testing in Metro Manila, 2020

A thesis prepared by Robert Lazaro

As of 2020, the Philippines has almost 70,000 cases of human immunodeficiency virus

(HIV) positive individuals and has the fastest rising cases in Asia. Ninety-four percent

of these cases belong to the men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) community and have

been on the receiving end of stigma and discrimination against HIV. This study emphasizes the MSM's need for a safe space for HIV care services and aims to understand how interpersonal communication between the healthcare providers and the MSM client negotiate a safe space. Through a qualitative research design, the study gathered the narratives of the healthcare providers and MSM clients of LoveYourself Anglo (TLY) and Manila Social Hygiene Clinic (MSHC). Guided by the tenets of symbolic interactionism, the researchers performed a thematic analysis that yielded two themes from the focus group discussions with the healthcare providers, namely, enabling mechanisms and cultivating holistic health development, and the four themes, namely, shared sense of need, enabling environment, negotiating holistic health development, and experiential meaning of safe space emerged from the in-depth interviews with the MSM clients.

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