3 December 2004, Manila – For the second year in a row at least 50,000 people turned out for the biggest ever HIV/AIDS awareness raising event organized in the Philippines. The MTV Staying Alive Music Summit for HIV/AIDS entertained and informed the massive crowd literally all night long, with a mixture of the best popular music artists in the Philippines and essential messages about prevention of HIV/AIDS. Several rising talents from the US and the UK also performed. The concert lasted from 4pm on December 1 World AIDS Day until 2am the next morning with a youthful and exuberant crowd.

“UNICEF and the UN community in the Philippines are very excited to witness such a large turn out for such an important social cause. HIV/AIDS is the worst public health epidemic in history and we have a chance to stop it in the Philippines if we create opportunities like the Staying Alive Music Summit which brings critical information to young people in a form that is entertaining and appealing.”

HIV/AIDS transmission in the Philippines is still “low and slow” however, health officials believe a significant increase in the spread of the HIV virus is “only a matter of time.”

Over 30 local and international acts performed for an audience that stayed all the way until the end of the show. Crowd favorites Bamboo, Rivermaya, The Mongols, Sandwich, Razorback, and Barbie’s Cradle were part of the all-star line-up which included many others. Highlights of the event also included special performances by international guests Jay Sean, Joshua Payne, The Barbs and Duncan Sheik, who came to Manila from the US to perform exclusively for the MTV Staying Alive Music Summit for HIV/AIDS.

The gates to the venue were open as early as 10 a.m., allowing the public to browse the various booths of sponsors, UNICEF, UNAIDS and UN agencies, as well as other non-government organizations to find out more about HIV/AIDS. The MTV Staying Alive Music Summit for HIV/AIDS was part of MTV's global Staying Alive campaign, which aims empower the youth to protect themselves, fight stigma and discrimination, and engage businesses, media and organizations to form their own response to HIV/AIDS.

MTV Staying Alive Music Summit has been staged to deliver the most critical messages to the largest at risk population: young people aged 15-24. UNICEF Philippines has played a leading role, along with UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNDP and WHO, in providing technical and financial support for the staging of the ambitious event. In addition, major private sector, NGO and government partners supported the event to bring about a broad and varied partnership to fight HIV/AIDS in the Philippines.

UNICEF sponsored a survey of HIV/AIDS awareness among the young members of the audience with over 1000 taking part. Results of the survey are still being tabulated and will be used to measure how well the concert messages are remembered several months after the concert.

A recent study of the University of the Philippines found that 63% of young people in the Philippines thought they were immune from HIV infection. The same study also recorded increasing numbers of young people engaging in unprotected pre-marital sex at younger ages.

For World AIDS Day 2003 MTV, UNAIDS and several businesses sponsored the Music Summit for HIV/AIDS which attracted over 60,000 people and international recording artist Mandy Moore.