The Region 1 Health Research and Development Consortium (R1HRDC) Ethics Research Committee in cooperation with the Regional Ethics Monitoring Board 1 (REMB-1) spearheaded the Orientation on How to Establish ERC and SOP Writing Training and Workshop on November 8-9, 2018 at Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center, Batac City, Ilocos Norte. The activity aims to educate the participants about the importance of ethics in research, give key points on how to establish their own ERC, and to teach them how to develop their ERC’s own Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) which is one of the major requirement when applying for accreditation. It was led by the regions very able speakers who are expert in the field of ethics, Dr. Maria Paz Virginia K. Otayza, Dr. Michael Martin Baccay, Prof Ryan Dean Sucgang and Dr Mayrose L. Quezon.

On the first day Dr Otayza tackled topics on the importance of ethics in research, ERC compositions and functions, and how to establish ERC. Likewise, Dr Baccay presented the PHREB accreditation policies, and the first chapters of ERC SOP namely: review of REC functions, management of initial and post approval procedures, review procedures and meeting procedures. Prof. Sucgang talked on how to organize and present SOP, documentation, and archiving.

On the second day, the participants made their initial SOP with the creation of their ERCs vision, mission, objectives, structure and composition and presented it to the body which was critiqued by the able lecturers and even suggested on how to make their output better. In the afternoon, Dr Quezon made a talk on how to apply for ERC accreditation to PHREB through the REMB-1.

This training was one of the ways of both the REMB-1 and R1HRDC ERC to promote the creation of institutional ERCs and to address the problem of the region with only three (3) accredited ERC. It is expected that by next year, more institutional ERC will be established and eventually apply for accreditation.