Recalibrating Ethics Reporting in Philippine Psychology

The third installment of the Monthly Ethics Seminar Series (MESS) organized by the UP Diliman Research Ethics Board (UPDREB) was held last March 13, 2025 at the NSRI Conference Room, Miranda Hall. The topic for the latest installment of the series was “Recalibrating Ethics Reporting in Philippine Psychology: A Review of the Philippine Journal of Psychology (PJP) from 2010-2021”. 

Presented by Associate Professor Jay Yacat, Chairperson of the UP Diliman Department of Psychology, he reported the results of the study he conducted alongside other researchers Josefina Andrea R. Cantiller, Charmaine P. Galano, Lizette S. Inocencio, and Apryl Mae C. Parcon. The abstract of their research reads: 

In 2018, the Philippine Journal of Psychology (PJP) implemented its guidelines on research and publication ethics. In this study, we looked into the ethics procedures documented in empirical articles published in the PJP from 2010-2021. Of the 139 articles published in that time period, we coded and analyzed 132 empirical studies that involved human participants. Excluded from the analysis were non-empirical articles, articles without accessible full-text copies, and empirical studies not involving human participants. In general, we observed inadequate reporting of ethics practices in published studies. For example, we found that obtaining ethical clearance is still a rare practice, with just seven of the published studies having reported this. Slightly over half of the studies reported details of the informed consent process. Moreover, while almost a third (27.3%) detailed managing confidentiality and anonymity, very few (around 5-6%) documented how risks and benefits are managed. Last, while more than half (65.2%) recruited vulnerable groups, only 8.9% explicitly recognized these vulnerabilities and reported ethical safeguards to protect the participants. We discussed the implications of these findings on the value placed on ethics reporting in research training and education, and publication practices in Philippine psychology.

Assoc. Prof. Yacat emphasized the value of learning from real-life practice when the ethicality of research is detailed in journal articles and highlighted the need for consistent standards of scientific writing. Based on the study results, the authors drafted guidelines on ethics reporting for both researchers and ethics panels, part of which was shared to participants during the open forum. 

This seminar series by the UPDREB aims to facilitate participative discussions on research ethics across various disciplines. The recording of the session may be found in their Youtube page.

Pubmat and content prepared by Ella Julien N. Greñas.