On February 19, 2020, the DOH Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Center – Dagupan Research Ethics Committee (DOH DTRC Dagupan REC) received the good news of being granted Level 2 Accreditation by the Philippine Health Research Ethics Board thru the Regional Ethics Monitoring Board – 1, valid for 1 year.

Despite being one of the youngest member institutions of the Region 1 Health Research and Development Consortium, who’d became a member on May 2018, the committee which is headed by the Chair, Mr. Eric Vincent R. Maminta thru the help of the Dr. Ronnie Salvador (Chairman of the Research Committee) and with the support of Dr. Delfin Gubatan Jr (Chief of Hospital), managed to establish their own Research Ethics Committee at a short period of time. They initially applied to REMB-1 on April 4, 2019 and after complying with the accreditors’ comments and recommendations, they have been granted the provisional Level 2 accreditation. As Level 2 Accredited, the DOH DTRC Dagupan REC can now review all types of research except clinical trials required for FDA registration of new drugs, and post marketing studies. These may entail more than minimal risk to human participants involved on the research.

 As of to date, the DOH DTRC Dagupan REC is the first treatment and rehabilitation center under the Department of Health, to have their ethics committee accredited. Also, they are the only Level 2 accredited REC in the entire region and the first to be accredited in the province of Pangasinan.

Awarding of the certificate of accreditation to DOH DTRC Dagupan REC shall be on the PCHRD Anniversary Celebration on June 11, 2020.