The Department of Justice (DOJ) assured that it will continue to uphold the rights of people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). “We have championed their rights,” said Deputy State Prosecutor Margaret Castillo-Padilla, DOJ advocate for people living with HIV (PLHIV). “We have supported activities and programs that are meant to break the stigma and discrimination against PLHIV and fostered partnership with other government agencies and civil society organizations to ensure that their civil, social, political and economic rights are protected,” she added. Padilla pointed out the DOJ’s stand during the annual International AIDS Candlelight Memorial held at the DOJ on Monday morning, May 22. “The DOJ is also the first government agency to have adopted its own workplace policy,” she noted. She recalled that in 2021, then then justice secretary and now Solicitor General Menardo I. Guevarra issued Department Order (DO) No. 107, the Workplace Policy and Education Program on HIV and AIDS. Under the DOJ order, “we treated discriminatory and stigmatizing attitudes towards PLHIV in the workplace as a simple misconduct punishable by suspension of one month and one day up to six months and one day depending on the gravity for the first offense and dismissal from the service on the second offense,” she said. In the same DO, the secretary of justice directed the Office of the Prosecution Staff as well as all field offices of the National Prosecution Service to expedite the resolutions of all complaints filed in violation of the Republic Act No. 11166 or the Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act,” she added. At the same time, she said that the DOJ “took the lead in crafting uniform guidelines on redress mechanisms for PLHIV and other key affected populations.” Subsequently, Padilla said the DOJ and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) issued “a joint administrative circular on redress mechanisms.”