Philippine E-Journals

Where is Hiya in Research Ethics? Being Humane and Extending the Self in Doing Social Science Research

Roberto E. Javier Jr.

 

Abstract:

In this paper, some concerns and issues related to the ethical considerations in the conduct of social science research are discussed. There are confusions observed in the guidelines and premises as to which approaches and methodologies in research are considered ethical to conduct given its cultural context. The issuance of ethics clearance permits a study team to implement its funded research project and that, the research results could as well be published. The process of ethics review was recently institutionalized in universities to enable academics and students in higher education to do basic and applied researches. Such studies are anchored on reason, the truth and what is right. Yet, there are studies that have to be done but the methodologies to be employed are nuanced and even naïve given the peculiarities in a culture and specific context. It is observed that what some higher education institutions did in the creation of their ethics review board is ‘copy-paste’ kind of putting up their ethical guidelines for researchers. Some ethical guidelines may be simply imported and imposed on social science researchers to comply with, neglecting the nuances in doing ethical research in the Philippines. In this regard, retracing in Filipino thoughts the ethical principles is necessarily an exercise in rethinking about what is right, just and truthful in social science research ethics that is Filipino. Hiya is an indigenous concept that needs to be revisited in this exercise of rethinking about the formulation of Filipino research ethics.