4 Many of the respondent oil companies also raised the issue of territoriality–they questioned the power of our Commission to inquire into their activities since they did not operate within the territory of the Philippines. Stripped of legal niceties, the contention was that our Commission, or, indeed, the Philippine State, in general, may only inquire into the conduct of corporate entities operating within Philippine territory, even if the corporations’ operations outside our territory were negatively impacting the rights and lives of our people. We cannot accept such a proposition. The CHRP is mandated by the Philippine Constitution with the duty to investigate and inquire into allegations of human rights violations suffered by our people.9 Our Commission decides on how it must perform its constitutional duty.10 And the performance of this duty is neither constrained by nor anchored on the principle of territoriality alone. The challenge to NHRIs is to test boundaries and create new paths; to be bold and creative, instead of timid and docile; to be more idealistic or less pragmatic; to promote soft laws into becoming hard laws; to see beyond technicalities and establish guiding principles that can later become binding treaties; in sum, to set the bar of human rights protection to higher standards. Even if our Commission were not invested with compulsory processes or powers of enforcement–especially so in regard to parties not doing business in the Philippines–we can proceed with any inquiry we deem appropriate in relation to our mandate, regardless of who the implicated parties might be or where they may be domiciled. Thus, in 2015, during the 21st Climate Conference (CoP 21) in Paris in December, we announced that we were giving due course to the Petition. 9 Phil. Const. Art. XIII, § 18, paras. 1 & 3. 10 Under the doctrine of competence de la competence