The Philippine National Police (PNP) Human Rights Affairs Office (HRAO) successfully concluded two sets of human rights desk officers and trainers’ course for a total of 65 police officers from four administrative regions of the country comprising Central and Northern Luzon. The first activity was held from April 17-19, 2012 in San Fernando, La Union Province and the second on April 24-26, 2012 in Baguio City, Benguet Province. The training was conducted by senior police officers who previously completed a more extensive human rights (HR) instructors’ development course and now conduct follow-on activities to further instruct the next level of human rights desk officers and trainers based at the provincial offices who aside from their roles as trainers, will promote HR-based policing in various fora involving a wide range of audiences.

The Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF) provides technical and logistical support for the conduct of these training for key regional and provincial human rights officers and trainers to be held in strategic areas throughout the country with the next set of training activities scheduled for officers coming from the Southern Luzon, Bicol, Visayas, and Mindanao areas.

The training emphasized interactive discussion between the trainers and the participants and had impromptu role-playing activities with participants assigned specific roles and asked to instinctively react to given situations. To enhance the training effectiveness, the practical aspects of human rights-based policing and how these relate to established police operational procedures were emphasized. Participants were asked to “role-play” or comment on how their colleagues “acted out” specific police scenarios with the objective of identifying potential human rights violations.  The exercises demonstrated that correctly observing established police operational procedures incorporates the respect for human rights and minimizes the potential for commission of human rights violations.

The post-training evaluation indicated that the participants felt the need to incorporate HR-based policing principles as a required mindset in their regular planning and operational activities, as well as establish linkages with civil society organizations, local media, public and private agencies to help disseminate awareness of human rights-related issues and generate support for local human rights-based policing activities. The participants’ action plans for the next several months will not only have them conduct follow-on training activities for other human rights desk officers but also require that they volunteer or participate in other public fora to promote human rights-based policing and even elicit material assistance for outreach activities.