WHEN are you coming to get me? Isnt this supposed to be my last day? God, why dont you just kill me? Thousands of similar questions race through the mind of Gernado Pandairet every time he wakes up. I want to die so much, says this putaw (heroin) addict with the gaunt figure whose body is being eaten away by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis-C.

Gernados life lay in ruins, on account of a 14-year friendship with all types of illi