Research Institute for Tropical Medicine

By the early 1980s, negotiations between "mutually interested parties" within the governments of the Philippines and Japan had been going on for several years, and reached finally reached a breakthrough in 1981 in the form of a grant-in-aid agreement under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).[1]^: viii

With the help of this Japanese grant, a US$8 million facility was constructed within the Ministry of Health's Bureau of Research and Laboratories compound in Alabang, Muntinlupa.[1]^: viii Malacanang palace then issued Executive Order (EO) 674 on March 25, 1981, formally authorizing the Philippine Ministry of Health to establish a research facility to implement a basic and applied research program for tropical medicine in the Philippines, pushing both for health advancement and for medical research.[5][6]

The facility, which included an 80-bed hospital with an Intensive Care Unit and operating rooms,[6] was inaugurated on April 23, 1981.[1]^: i

Throughout the Marcos administration, the RITM was heavily dependent on Japanese government funding for its continued operations with JICA providing about US$1 million (approx ₱18 million) from 1981 to 1984,[7] and providing another ₱3.2 million in equipment in 1985, when the year RITM's experimental animal laboratory was established. By contrast, the administration's budget allocated the RITM an average of about ₱7 million annually from 1981 to 1985, largely for basic operating expenses and personnel services.[8] The institution was also renamed, having originally been proposed as the "Philippine Japan Research Institute for Tropical Diseases."[8][9]

The institute's output was criticised in underground publications during the martial law regime because its research findings were not being released in the Philippines, and were instead only being submitted to JICA to satisfy grant requirements,[6] given that the majority of the patients it served were research patients, while the Philippine health system had an overwhelming need to meet basic health services.[6]

The institute thus became associated with the administration's supposed "edifice complex"[10] - propaganda projects designed to be impressive showcases of the administration's achievements but whose actual development impact at the time was questionable.[10][6][8] Like many edifice complex projects, RITM was located only in Manila, limiting access to it by citizens from elsewhere on the Philippine archipelago.[8]

Criticism of these and similar funding practices which helped prop up of the Marcos regime eventually became known as the Marukosu giwaku (マルコス疑惑), or "Marcos scandal", once the Marcoses were deposed in 1986.[11] The investigation by the Japanese legislature's 1986 session and the resulting reforms eventually brought about the creation of JICA's first ODA Charter in 1992.[12][13]

The RITM was retained by the Aquino administration,[14] and the various administrations after the 1986 EDSA revolution have continued to work with JICA to improve and expand RITM's services.[15]

By 1987, RITM had implemented reforms reflecting the new administration's focus on making sure research is disseminated – launching a companion program to disseminate research results and creating the Office of Public Information Research Dissemination. It also launched a quarterly publication detailing its research findings and news items. Work towards the establishment of an International Training Center was also begun.[16]

After Marcos was deposed in February 1986, the new government began allotting larger budgets to the RITM, with a ₱4.9 million increase in 1986. In the first full budget year after the Marcos administration, the RITM was given ₱5 million more than it had been given in the 1985 budget.[17]

Research grants from the World Health Organization, the National Academy of Sciences (BOSTID), the International Development Research Center, the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau, the Edna McConnel Clark Foundation, Sanofi, and the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development allowed RITM to expand its research beyond their previous focus on diarrheal diseases, acute respiratory infections, and schistosomiasis, and allowed research programs in AIDS, leprosy, hepatitis, dengue, and malaria. A Technical Cooperation Program with JICA allowed RITM to expand the expertise of its staff.[16]

In 1989, the RITM Center for Training in Tropical Infectious Diseases was established.

In 1990 the US National Institutes of Health approved a 5-year grant to the RITM for the establishment of a NIH Tropical Medicine Research Center Program in the Philippines, starting in February 1991. This partnership allowed the RITM to collaborate with scientists in Australia and the US on research relating to malaria, leprosy, and schistosomiasis.[18]

The Biologicals Production Service of the Department of Health, the vaccine laboratory of the Philippines, was absorbed by the RITM in November 2000[19]

The RITM received a Biosafety Level 3 laboratory from the Japanese government in 2018, improving its capacity to conduct research on higher-risk bacteria and viruses.[20]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the RITM became a site for preliminary testing for suspected cases of SARS-CoV-2 in the Philippines.[21] In the early months of the pandemic in the Philippines, RITM was the only laboratory with the capacity to test COVID-19 cases.[22]