I. Arrival and Registration | 8:38 AM – 9:23 AM At 8:38 in the morning, participants started to arrive at the venue. The CHR XI team facilitated the registration of the participants. While waiting for the other participants to arrive, the morning snacks was served. At 9:23 in the morning a total of 30 participants, coming from different barangays of Sta. Maria LGU were registered for the activity. II. Preliminaries | Opening Ceremony | 9:24 AM – 9:38 AM At 9:24 AM, the activity was formally opened with an invocation. A multimedia presentation of the song Dakilang Maylikha by Gary Granada served as the morning prayer. This was then followed by the singing of the Philippine National Anthem. Acting as the main facilitator of the activity, Mr. Niel Peter Arendain led the introduction of the participants. He asked the participants to stand up and be recognized as he called their names in the plenary. He also introduced the members of the CHR XI team who were present in the plenary hall. Shortly after, Mr. Arendain thanked all the participants for responding to CHR’s invitation. III. Welcome Remarks | 9:39 AM – 9:41 AM Hon. Victoria Yu, the Barangay Captain of Barangay Pompong, gave a brief welcome message to formally open the morning session. She thanked the CHR XI team and the participants for their attendance in the activity. As a proud member of the women sector, she also articulated that she hopes to learn from the discussions and learning input that will happen within the day. IV. Rationale of the Activity and Human Rights, CHR Mandate and Rights Against Discrimination | 9:42 AM – 11:45 AM In order to provide a proper context of the activity, Mr. Alfonso Balansag Jr. provided the rationale of the Regional Mapping of Legal Referral Mechanisms on Gender-Based Violence. He explained that the session is a sort of a consultation process where everyone gets to share their experiences on handling GBV cases. This, according to Mr. Balansag, is important because CHR will be crafting a policy recommendation that will be endorsed to the legislative body and help improve the current policies and laws protecting women and children. Given so, he asked everyone to participate and share their experiences especially during the focus group discussion. After, Mr. Balansag proceeded with his presentation on Human Rights and the Commission on Human Rights Mandate and Rights Against Discrimination. The following are the important points raised during his discussion: • To start his presentation, Mr. Balansag asked the participants about their perceptions on the Commission on Human Rights. He then presented some of the common perceptions about CHR. Among these common perceptions are the following: CHR favors criminals, CHR as enemy of 15