UP Manila, Monash University ink MOU to boost forensic science in PH

MANILA, Philippines — The country intends to increase its pool of forensics experts and medicolegal investigators by bringing in experts from Australia who will help the University of the Philippines-Manila (UPM) provide training programs in forensic science beginning in February next year.

With that development, Dr. Raquel Fortun hopes that she will no longer be among the only two forensic pathologists in the country, with more following in her footsteps—examining thousands of corpses to determine how and why they died.

Fortun, 62, said the program would train a new batch of experts who would facilitate the proper conduct of death investigations, and consequently improve the country’s pitiful justice system.

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“I waited 30 years for this and now I am two and a half years away from retirement,” said Fortun, chair of the Pathology Department of UPM’s College of Medicine.

“We don’t have a death investigation system, which should be beneficial to our criminal justice system and public health issues. We are not seriously interested [yet] in preventing deaths by learning from them,” she observed.

Training programs

On Oct. 24, UPM and Australia’s Monash University signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that allows both schools to offer specialized forensic science programs in the Philippines through a hybrid setup.

Under that partnership, students of the training programs will either receive a two-year Forensic Medicine Master’s Degree or a short-term certificate issued jointly by the two learning institutions, following Republic Act No. 11448 or the Transnational Education Law.

Fortun’s department and the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine of Monash University had developed a framework and curriculum for forensic science education in the Philippines.

Through funding by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, forensics experts and doctors from Monash University will be sent to the Philippines to help Filipinos develop programs and expertise in forensic science—thereby increasing the number of forensics experts in the country.

The Commission on Higher Education and UPM will invite faculty of state universities and colleges with a medicine program to take part in the first rollout of the training programs.

As UPM chancellor Michael Tee explained: “We will utilize the existing program of Monash University on forensic science in training Filipinos. That same program will be adopted… by the UP Board of Regents so that later when our faculty are already trained, we can jointly offer the master’s degree in forensic science through a transnational education portal by Monash University and UP.”

“This partnership … is an important faculty development process that will boost the number of our forensics experts who will not only look into crimes but also other public health issues that affect specific sectors in the country,” he added.

Independent examinations

Fortun and Dr. Maria Cecilia Lim, vice chair of the Pathology Department, are still the only two forensic pathologists in the country.

She has been called not only by government agencies who need her expertise in high-profile cases but also by families seeking a second or even third opinion in uncovering the real cause of death of their loved ones.

More recently, her independent examinations of some of the bodies of drug war suspects revealed several irregularities in the previous autopsies by law enforcement authorities.

Death investigation system

The Philippines currently employs a Philippine National Police-led medicolegal death investigation wherein the police define the scope of both the criminal investigation (to determine if a crime is committed and to gather evidence) and death investigation (to determine the who, when, where, and how of a given fatality).

The National Bureau of Investigation also conducts its own death investigation, but only in what it considers high-profile cases upon the recommendation of the Department of Justice (DOJ), its parent agency.

Fortun has been calling for a death investigation system that is fully state-funded and independent from law enforcement.

Human rights groups noted that the country’s current death investigation system could be a source of conflict of interest, given that the police are accused of leading many of the extrajudicial killings and also have the near-exclusive power to investigate themselves.

The NBI itself found instances of evidence planting, inconsistencies in forensic reports and witness tampering conducted by PNP personnel in several drug war cases reviewed by the DOJ.

“Now there’s hope,” she said of an independent death investigation system being developed in the country, as well as justice for the thousands who were killed in the drug war of the previous administration.