INTRODUCTION:
Pursuant to the mandate under the Universal Health Care Act, the Department of Health (DOH) of the Republic of the Philippines constituted a Public Health Ethics Committee (PHEC) as an independent advisory body to the Secretary of Health in 2021. The PHEC was organized primarily to ensure the ethicality of policy-determining activities within the DOH. In this presentation, the historical development, accomplishments, and future directions for the PHEC are presented.

METHODS:
This presentation draws on a review of documents of the PHEC, as well as an autoethnographic reflection of the presenter, who is the first, and incumbent, chair of PHEC.

RESULTS:
The PHEC was originally formed to assess conflicts of interest of persons, either directly employed or engaged by the DOH, who are involved in policy-determining activities. Following the designation of the first committee -- consisting of a public health expert, ethics expert, legal advisor, and community representatives -- and the development of its standard operating procedures, the PHEC's role has expanded to that of an advocate (i.e., through pre-service and in-service orientation and capacity-building in public health ethics) and researcher (i.e., through the current effort to develop the DOH Code of Ethics). Its advisory role has also expanded to include ethics consultation by different offices of the DOH. Future developments for the PHEC include decentralization of its functions through the establishment of counterpart committees in the offices and bureaus of the DOH, and expansion of scope to include other agencies and local government units with health-related mandates.

CONCLUSIONS:
The first five years of the PHEC's operations has highlighted the demand for integration of an ethical dimension in public health decision-making. Further development of capacity locally, as well as networking with similar groups regionally and globally, are essential next steps in sustaining the inroads made by the inaugural committee.