FOREWORD “Activism works. So, what I’m telling you to do now is to act. No one is too small to make a difference.” -Greta Thunberg “Every single strike, every moment whether in times of victory or frustration, what we do every day will make a difference." -Jose Luis Martin C. Gascon In 2021 and the immediate years prior to it, the world faced some of the most ominous questions beckoning contemporary time: “Do we continue championing the supremacy of the human rights paradigm that we have built over the years against the incoming tide of backward forces seeking to undo our gains? Can we say in the same vein that we are still ready to uphold democracy and exercise the Constitutional powers vested in us in the role of democracy and human rights defenders, to keep the letter and spirit of our laws alive?” For years and decades, the grim reality of our societies returning to authoritarian conduct have been begging the question and demanding that we think long and hard. In the Philippines, as with the rest of the world, it has been showing signs that the way forward would spring forth not only in the utterances of history’s pundits, but also in the voices of the ordinary men and women of our time. Greta Thunberg, a 15-year old female Swedish conscience activist caught the attention of the international community when she protested the calloused and unapologetic environmental negligence by most of the world’s governments. She opposed the stark permissiveness that has been pushing the planet in the brink of disastrous climate change and its impending chaos. Her status rose as she began launching solo campaigns outside the Swedish Parliament and eventually impacted wide-reaching attention called the “Greta effect” that was coined by a well-known British newspaper. Miles away from Greta Thunberg, nonetheless, by the same token, an adamant call to action was being echoed on our side of the world. From 2016 to 2021, civil libertarians in the Philippines were being urged to stand up together against forces seeking to emasculate our hard-won democracy and its moral values. An appeal was being resounded to resist a political dispensation that was aggressively using brute force against citizens through more centralized power and less rule of law. Gathering all hands-on deck was the call, the job of the utmost essence to preserve and protect the key democratic principles. Our call has been urgent and imperative and the task was to chip away without relent and with all courage, at the “rock”. The late Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairperson Jose Luis Martin “Chito” Gascon in his own quote, alluded to “a colossal rock” as such describing how “under the outgoing administration, human rights in the country suffered unprecedented setbacks that could only be compared to another dark era in Philippine history, the period of Martial Law under the dictatorial President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.” While the CHR Chief lost the battle to COVID-19 infection in October 2021, he had nonetheless won the power to spark more flame for human rights advocacy. Chair Gascon was described by colleagues in human rights advocacy as “dedicated public servant who never cowered in fear in asserting people’s rights and civil liberties and a leader who carried on with dignity, strength and courage, amid the challenges faced by the CHR”. While the Thunberg and Gascon quotes seem separate and distinct as per the unique contexts they represented, both arose from very similar principles and perspectives-a paradigm for peoples’ human rights entitlement. Both articulated the primacy of having an enabling policy environment as well as a sustainable rights-based socio-political ecosystem integral to the full enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, and the basic freedoms and 2