Dear  HRDs and Advocates,

Peace.

The Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA), and the Alternative Law Groups (ALG) invite you to attend the HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS’ FORUM WITH THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS  on December 12, 2011, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., at the CHR Multi-Purpose Hall, Diliman, Quezon City.

One key component of the CHR’s Roadmap and Key Strategies is the institutionalization of CHR-civil society relationship.   To contribute to this desired goal of institutionalizing CHR-CSO relationship, CHR, PAHRA, and the ALG will organize a series of discussion sessions between the CHR officers and the human rights defenders.  Each session is expected to gather around 30-40 participants, composed of CHR officers and HR Defenders.  The December 12 forum is the first in this series of dialogues.

The discussion sessions will have as a primary objective the strengthening of the cooperation between the CSO human rights defenders and the CHR officers, both at the policy level and at the grassroots level.   The discussion sessions will be a venue to tackle recently enacted policies, and proposed policies, specially the pending bill on the CHR Charter.  Furthermore, the sessions will serve as a forum to discuss the enhancement and institutionalization of cooperative mechanisms for CSO defenders and CHR officers’ parallel and complementary works for human rights promotion and protection.

This initiative is being undertaken as part of the Defend the Defenders Program (Program for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Defenders), a partnership between the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Alternative Law Groups (ALG).  The program is primarily a funding mechanism for activities that seek to protect the country’s human rights defenders, especially those working on economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), against threatened or actual abuses and rights violations that they encounter in relation to their advocacy work.

For your reference, we attached a concept note, which describes the December 12, 2011 Forum and the Defend the Defenders Program.

We hope that you can join us in this activity, which is part of this year’s celebration of Human Rights Day.

Thank you very much.

Very truly yours,

Hon. LORETTA ANN P. ROSALES
Chairperson
Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines

Mr. MAX DE MESA
Chairperson
Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates

Atty. MARLON J. MANUEL
Coordinator
Alternative Law Groups (ALG)