Cheryl Daytec

Indigenous Kankanaey woman, Cheryl L. Daytec was a human rights lawyer in the Philippines when she participated in DTP’s regional capacity building programs on the rights of Indigenous peoples in Darwin, Australia.

Cheryl was born in a city called Baguio, in the northern part of the Philippines. Historically Indigenous peoples in the Philippines have been denied their rights and subjected to discrimination. Cheryl remembers her parents talking about the injustices suffered by Indigenous peoples in the Philippines during her growing-up years. She says, “My sense of justice was very strong from early age.”

Cheryl believes that more Indigenous people should become lawyers because she saw how Indigenous peoples of the Philippines had to rely on the good hearts of very few lawyers willing to defend them. But the few could not represent all communities. Various Indigenous issues that should been brought to court were unredressed for lack of legal representation, “so I decided to study law to join the few”.

Cheryl says that her participation in the DTP course was very useful in expanding her network of human rights advocates.

“DTP brings like-minded people from different parts of the globe together. And that is very important because when we create collective noise, we do more work, we can shake foundations and we can do wonders. I am still connected with some of our training participants. Sometimes I consult them on certain issues. So, participating in the DTP was a very good experience.”

Cheryl also appreciated the session where participants discussed how cases of human rights violations could be brought before the United Nations.

“It’s good when we discuss with colleagues working on the same issues because we bring in multiple perspectives and then we get a clearer picture.”

Today, Cheryl’s work focuses on the rights of migrant workers, so important to the Philippines and a major focus of DTP. As head of POLO-Geneva, she is responsible in ensuring protection of overseas Filipino workers in her areas of jurisdiction. As the labor attaché of the Philippines in the ILO, she also participates in international policy work to improve labour standards in different parts of the world and promote social justice through decent work. She was Coordinator of the Government Group in the ILO before becoming ASPAG Coordinator, a role she currently holds.

Cheryl envisions a world full of justice for everyone. She avers that DTP is playing an effective role in shaping such world.

“DTP trains people with experience and people with little experience. Many of the DTP participants are community advocates, like me. DTP does not just train one person when it trains a community advocate; it trains communities as well. When we go back to them after the training, we disseminate the skills and knowledge we acquired. Our goal should be to make ourselves eventually irrelevant to communities we serve. And this happens when they have enough skills for self-agency or to self-represent, which we help capacitate them with, including by passing on the knowledge and skills gained from participating in the DTP. If communities still depend on us after a long time engaging with them, it means we failed in our development work.”