National Summit on International Humanitarian Law in the Philipppines | 35 TOPIC 2: GOOD PRACTICES ANDINITIATIVES OF SERVICE PROVIDERS Presentor1: PROF. MIRIAM CORONEL-FERRER ew APU Sulong CARHRIHL Prof. Miriam C.Ferrer started her discussion by greeting each and everyone a pleasant morning. As she informedthe participants, her presence was to share with them what the Sulong CARHRIHL has done. Sulong CARHRIHLisa networkthatis being put up to make sure that CARHRIHL,or the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Law signed in 1998 by the Philippine Goverment and the National partnerships and provided someof their basic Democratic Front, wouldprecisely live up to both services. parties’ commitments. As its first importantrealization, IHL principles As she briefly shared, there are two important are not hardto explain and not hard to introduce realizations that they hadin their work especially because even though people in the communities in local communities since the last 4 to 5 years. do not know the concept or the name IHL orits As stated, CARHRIHLwassigned in 1998 butit Filipino counterpart, they actually know whatitis wasnotreally implementedby both parties. They all about. agreed to implementit, but it was only in 2004 continued,is based on their own experiences with whenthey started to implementit, and thatis the the violence, their own sense of humanity, and reason whythey organized themselves. their customary beliefs. As to customary beliefs, And that kind of knowledge, she emphasized on indigenous communities where The Realizations of Sulong CARHRIHL the fightings take place, in the uplands wherethe Prof. Ferrer mentioned two realizations about AFPis chasing the NPAs.She said thatrealization their work. Beforehand, they decided to focus on is important becausetheyare just putting a name the ground because that is the place where the to whatthey already know, where they only share fighting is. That is also where the twoparties are. experiencesin theotherplaces. For instance, what While the negotiations, the politics, happened at Atty. Pintor had sharedearlier, they also found out the national level and both parties observe the as very commonexperienceson the ground. Agreement. With this, they invested a lot of their efforts in making it possible in some of the As she figured out, that kind of sense of humanity communities where they have established maybe, commonsenseof humanity - founded on