Preparing for the
CMW Engagement
All three categories of duty bearers made parallel and collective preparations for the CMW
engagement starting off from the CMW issuance of the first concluding observations in
2009 for the first periodic report of the Philippines.
Simulation Exercise/ Practice Session for the Revalida
This was the final activity conducted by the Philippine government delegation before
departing for Geneva.
Constructive Dialogue between the State Party and the CMW: Consideration of the
Philippine Report
In this section a brief documentation of the dialogue between the treaty body and the State
party is presented. This is to provide the reader with a sense of how an actual consideration
takes place.
Concluding
Observations,
Mapping of
Responsible
Agencies
The final phase of the Committee’s examination of the report consists of the drafting and
adoption of its concluding observations. For this purpose, the Committee usually sets aside
a brief period in closed session immediately after the conclusion of the dialogue to enable
its members to express their preliminary views. The country rapporteur then prepares, with
the assistance of the secretariat, a draft set of concluding observations for consideration by
the Committee. The agreed structure of the concluding observations is as follows:
introduction of positive aspects, factors and difficulties impeding the implementation of the
Convention, principal subjects of concern and suggestions and recommendations. At a
later stage, the Committee then discusses the draft again in private session, with a view to
adopting it by consensus.
This section also presents the concluding observations vis a vis a mapping of state
responsibility, which is the outcome document that guides the Commission on Human
Rights in monitoring the progress of the recommendations arising from the treaty reporting
process.
The Mapping Document is a product of the ‘Human Rights Based Approach’ tools that the
Commission has applied in its monitoring work. This will be used as a template for the
Government’s report card on how it has fared in considering and acting on the Committee
of Migrant Workers’ recommendations.
It also signals ‘Human Rights Cooperation’ as a mode of engagement among the duty
bearers and necessitates the inclusion of claim holders or rights bearers in the process
implementation monitoring. Cooperation involves two objectives:
First is to build awareness and capacities in government institutions in order that they are
able to adopt rights based approaches in performing their functions and to enable them to
fulfil their responsibility to promote and protect human rights;
Second, to develop mechanisms to formalize collaborative efforts to capacitate government
in promoting and protecting human rights.
The mapping features four (4) categories of duty bearers, the three branches of government,
independent, constitutionalizing bodies (including the CHRP) alongside civil society. The
three branches of government has been renamed to reflect the State’s primary obligation to
human rights and as such, the Commission has chosen to call it the ‘Branches of State
Responsibility’: the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary with Constitutional
Independent Bodies’. Finally, this is regarded as a living document in the course of the
Monitoring the progress of the implementation of the treaty body recommendations within
the reporting cycle.