- Baseline Study on the Philippine Penal Conditions: Nurturing o Human Rights Based Approach to Penal Management ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ informal mechanisms. Finally, it will describe the culture that emerges in the penal settings. Culture refers to the way of doing things inside a facility, or the narratives inmates and penal personnel employ to justify specific behaviors. A description of the interface of the structural, organizational, and cultural conditions will provide an understanding of how penal institutions are currently managed in the Philippines. A basic exposition and understanding of the current conditions are important as many of the prevailing practices had been informally accepted and deemed as a fundamental component of penal management. Most of the penal personnel have learned of these practices from exposure to peers and through personal experiences working in the field, and asking the personnel to unlearn these practices to give way to the human rights based approaches will be a long and tedious task. While some of the human rights based approaches may simply require a re-orientation and rechanneling of the old penal practices, other practices may require a total overhaul. Also, some of the old penal practices may linger as institutions and facilities adapt to the new human rights based approaches, thus a strategy on how to accommodate these old penal practices in the interim will be noted. Following the description of the current penal conditions, this baseline study will describe the human rights based approaches in penal management. It is a how-to guide that prescribes specific practices to be observed in key domains of penal management like inmate classification, inmate housing, inmate programming, and documentation and assessment of inmate behaviors. Penal managers will be asked to implement these substantive domains using the structural, organizational, and cultural dimensions of the institution. ................................................ "A human rights-based approach is a conceptual fram ework for the process of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights. It seeks to analyse inequalities which lie at the heart of development problems and redress discriminatory practices and unjust distributions ofpower that impede development progress. Mere charity is not enough from a human rights perspective. Under a human rights-based approach, the plans, policies and processes of development are anchored in a system of rights and corresponding obligations established by international law. This helps to promote the sustainability of development work, empowering people themselvesespecially the most marginalized-to participate in policy formulation and hold accountable those who have a duty to act." -The UN Statement of Common Understanding on Human Rights-Based Approaches to Development Cooperation and Programming (th e Common Understanding), 2003 By developing th is guidebook, prison superintendents, jail warde ns, police station chiefs, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) , Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and Bureau of Immigration (Bl) custodial heads, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) security unit heads, and other top leaders of a penal facility will be guided on how to run their specific organizations. Additionally, by providing a how-to guide that specifies similar standards, policies, procedures, and practices, a unified penal approach can be achieved. The achievements in one agency can be systematically transferred to another agency. For example, documents regarding inmate participation in a BJMP Jail or Provincial Jail can easily be transferred and honored in a BuCor Prison, since the standards, policies, procedures, and practices for jails and prisons will be made uniform. 7