51 administrative notice that, supposedly, has no basis in law or in the Commission’s Omnibus Rules.207 2.131. Respondent ExxonMobil is mistaken. The statement of the issue and the reliefs prayed for in the Petition are properly within the coverage of a human rights investigation, specifically, a national public inquiry. 2.132. On one hand, “[t]he legal meaning of ‘investigate’ is ‘(t)o follow up step by step by patient inquiry or observation; to trace or track; to search into; to examine and inquire into with care and accuracy; to find out by careful inquisition; examination; the taking of evidence; a legal inquiry; to inquire; to make an investigation (….),’208 A human rights investigation is a process of determining the particular human right violation, identifying the composite elements of the particular right, and making recommendations to protect the particular right.”209 2.133. The Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institution and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law describe a national inquiry, in particular, as follows: “A national inquiry is a good means to address the most complex human rights situations that NHRIs confront. Whereas NHRIs may conduct public hearings into individual complaints, that process is quite narrow and confined to the specific facts of the particular complaints. A national inquiry, by contrast, addresses patterns of violation revealed by large numbers of complaints, or other information addressed to the NHRI, that require a comprehensive approach. National inquiries address situations of human rights violations that affect the entire country or a significant part of it. This is a space dimension. There is also a time dimension. A national inquiry is a good means to handle an historic pattern of human rights violations, such as practices that have become embedded over many years or decades in the history and culture of the country and that are difficult to investigate on the basis of isolated individual actions. The complexity of the situation being investigated requires that any response be undertaken by a significant number of different actors, not only the Government. The national inquiry process enables the identification of all 207 Respondent ExxonMobil’s Motion to Dismiss Ad Cautelam dated 13 September 2016, Nos. 31-32, pp. 9-10. 208 Cariño vs. CHR, G.R. No. 96681, 02 December 1991. 209 Training Manual on Human Rights Monitoring, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2001)

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