Memorandum for the Petitioners | 22 4.5. Therefore, it has been clearly established that the Honorable Commission correctly pursued this investigation in pursuit of its constitutionally-mandated duty to the Filipino people. The issues and reliefs prayed for in the Petition are well within the Honorable Commission’s investigative function 4.6. Attherisk of sounding repetitious, the authority of the Honorable Commission to conduct an investigation against respondents on their responsibility for human rights violations or threats thereof resulting from the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification is clearly mandated in Section 18, Article XII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which explicitly empowers it to: (1) Investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights; XXX (6) Recommend to the Congress effective measures to promote human rights and to provide for compensation to victims of violations of human rights, or their families; (7) Monitor the Philippine compliance with international treaty human rights; Government’s obligations on xx x.6! 4.7. As explained in petitioners’ Consolidated Reply dated 10 February 2017, the issues and reliefs prayed for in the Petition are proper under the Honorable Commission’s mandate to conduct a national public inquiry. “The 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 (....),’ 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.”® ®! Section 18, Article XII] of the 1987 Philippine Constitution. ® Carifio vs. CHR, G.R. No. 96681, 02 December 1991. § UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2001), Training Manual on Human Rights Monitoring, available at https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/training7Introen.pdf (last accessed 06 September 2019).