On 14 September 2020, Prosecutor General Benedicto A. Malcontento signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Consuelo Foundation* to develop an online training course for prosecutors on effective investigation and prosecution of cases involving women and children. Once developed, the online course will be made available to prosecutors in a learning portal which the NPS will launch soon. Under the MOU, the Foundation will also donate to NPS 80 sets of anatomically-correct dolls (ACD) which prosecutors use when presenting child witnesses in court.
Consuelo Foundation was represented by Atty. Carmela Andal-Castro, the Managing Director of its Philippine Office. Likewise virtually present during the MOU signing ceremony were the Foundation’s President and CEO, Hawai’i-based Mr. Greg Auberry, and its Director for Quality Assurance, Ms. Lauren Pelascini, as well as Provincial Prosecutor Renato C. Samonte, Jr., head of the NPS Special Projects Division, and the NPS Training Team on Women and Children Course led by City Prosecutor Giselle Marie Geronimo (San Fernando, Pampanga).
*A foundation headquartered in Hawaii, USA, that was founded by Consuelo Zobel Alger, with the mission “to promote the wellbeing of at-risk children, women and families in the Philippines and Hawai‘i, and to prevent and treat their abuse, neglect, and exploitation.”