● The Commission on Human Rights’ Gender Ombud Guidelines included a protocol on handling cases of women with disabilities. The CHR also regularly conduct activities promoting the SRHR of women with disabilities. These activities include consultations on the human rights issues of women with disabilities, peer facilitated capacity-building sessions and Training of Trainors for women with disabilities, module development on their basic human rights, and the conduct of a National Inquiry focusing on women with disabilities. 3.3.3. Health Service Providers’ limited capacity to provide disability inclusive services, equipment, and facilities The RH service providers’ capacity to meet—at the very least—the minimum basic needs of women with disabilities, is constrained by a lack of personnel with appropriate skills, a lack or limited awareness of disability needs and rights, and a lack of facilities and equipment for women with disabilities. There were limited to no specialists that could attend to the health and care needed by women with disabilities across Inquiry sites. The Women and Child Protection Unit (WCPU) of Agusan del Norte Hospital had no permanent psychiatrist in their office. This caused delay in a case that needed a psychiatric examination as court evidence. In a similar vein, the PNP in Manila is faced with delayed investigations due to the absence of an in-house clinical psychologist or psychiatrist who will conduct the evaluation of women clients with cognitive impairment. The Women and Children Protection Desk (WCPD) of Butuan City only had one male medico-legal in-charge of all cases in the CARAGA region. The chief of the WCPD acknowledged this as an issue when dealing with rape victims. The City Health Office of Malaybalay could not provide free hearing aids due to the absence of specialists that could provide a prescription. Across all Inquiry sites, deaf and/or hard-of-hearing women with disabilities complained about lack of SLIs in frontline offices at the national, regional, and LGU levels. This was corroborated by interviews with service providers; they confided that SLIs remained a gap in their provision of services. Testimonies from CAR and Region VII surfaced issues related to the lack of sign language capabilities. A police officer from Cebu, for example, expressed the need for proper training in sign language, “We would like to ask the government to provide us proper training in sign language. It’s hard to interpret the deaf or hard-of-hearing clients when we try to communicate with them. What we usually do to understand them is to ask them to draw or write on a piece of paper.” According to a WCPU Officer from Butuan, “[Effective] communication with the deaf and/or hard-ofhearing victims of violence and/or abuse is critical. Getting their testimonies and other information relevant to their cases requires someone who has technical knowledge in understanding their language. Otherwise, the information that could be gathered will either be lacking, twisted, and/or exaggerated. Hence, unreliable.” The gap in the 25