Philippine Alliance of Women With Disabilities all government agencies of their budgets to disability-related programs and services. This was supposed to have been implemented annually for the 2nd Decade of Persons with Disabilities from 2003 to 2012, yet no steps have been taken to ensure this budget commitment for disability related programs and services in particular for women and girls with disabilities. Ms. Mendoza who was then Commissioner of the Commission on Audit, supported the need for reporting and accountability for this budget policy. This includes agencies such as the Philippine Commission on Women, Department of Education, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Health, and all other executive agencies and government owned- / controlled corporations. 3. Access to justice advocacy by stakeholders of the Deaf community has been active for over a decade9. Civil society organizations have been the sole source of information on the absence of accessibility particularly for deaf women and girl complainants of sexual violence. Their complaints account for the majority of all deaf complaints nationwide. Despite repeated engagements for over ten years with the Department of Justice, Supreme Court - Office of the Court Administrator and the National Council on Disability Affairs on instituting a national system of sign language interpreting, this goal has remained problematic and elusive: e.g., Prosecutors ask deaf parties to arrange for their own private sign language interpreters at their own expense; cases of deaf women and children go through preliminary investigations and trials with no sign language interpretation; and the task of coordination of (largely volunteer) interpreters, explanation of basic information on sign language interpretation (particularly of unschooled deaf women and girl victims of violence), etc. are done almost exclusively by other deaf and hearing volunteers of the Philippine Federation of the Deaf and the PDRC / Deaf Resources Philippines. 4. A second national technical workshop for the Sustainable Development Goal indicators was convened on May 11 and 12 in Metro Manila in preparation for the government’s participation in the coming High Level Political Forum10. The break-out group for women largely focused on existing instruments such as the National Demographic and Health Survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority, which is very limited in its data on women and girls with disabilities. Even with representatives from the Philippine National Police, and the Philippine Commission on Women in the break-out group, discussion on the situation of women and girls with disabilities could not be adequately done because of the lack of data, and overall policy, programs and services. Recommendation for Policy Measures: Ensure the full participation of women with disabilities, and establish systematic mechanisms for datagathering and reporting (following General Recommendation No. 9), across all sectors (including political participation, health, education, access to justice, employment, violence, social protection etc) and financing, partnering and monitoring, which are compliant with the Convention. On Special Measures Information on recent developments To date there continues to be non-implementation of Executive Order 410 on the economic independence program for persons with disabilities,11 despite its issuance over a decade ago. If implemented, it would include among others, quotas which would impact women with disabilities: “All national government agencies, state universities, government and control corporations and government financial institutions, including LGUs, shall avail of at least ten percent (10%) of their procurements from persons with disabilities.” 9 Access to Justice. Case Monitoring by the Philippine Deaf Resource Center (2006-2012). http://www.phildeafres.org/files/PDRC_Case_Monitoring_2006-2012.pdf 10 2nd Technical Workshop on Sustainable Development Goals Indicators” National Economic Development Authority / Philippine Statistical Authority / UNDP. May 11-12, 2016, Pasig City. 11 Directing the implementation of the economic independence program for persons with disabilities. http://www.ncda.gov.ph/disability-laws/executive-orders/executive-order-no-417/ 3