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. At the risk 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 XIII 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
r
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 Government’s
compliance with international treaty obligations on
human rights;
X X X . 61
r
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 followup 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 (....), 62 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 . ^63
5
5
61
Section 18, Article XIII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
Cariho vs. CHR, G .R . No. 96681 , 02 December 1991 .
63
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2001 ), Training Manual on Human Rights
Monitoring, available at https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/PubIications/training7Introen .pdf ( last accessed
06 September 2019).
62
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