The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM; ) is a health research facility based in Muntinlupa, Philippines. History Establishment By the early 1980s, negotiations between "mutually interested parties" within the governments of the Philippines and Japan had been going on for several years, and reached finally reached a breakthrough in 1981 in the form of a grant-in-aid agreement under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). With the help of this Japanese grant, a US$8 million facility was constructed within the Ministry of Health's Bureau of Research and Laboratories compound in Alabang, Muntinlupa. Malacanang palace then issued Executive Order (EO) 674 on March 25, 1981, formally authorizing the Philippine Ministry of Health to establish a research facility to implement a basic and applied research program for tropical medicine in the Philippines, pushing both for health advancement and for medical research. The facility, which included an 80-bed hospital with an Intensive Care Unit and operating rooms, was inaugurated on April 23, 1981. Marcos era issues Throughout the Marcos administration, the RITM was heavily dependent on Japanese government funding for its continued operations with JICA providing about US$1 million (approx 18 million) from 1981 to 1984, and providing another 3.2 million in equipment in 1985, when the year RITM's experimental animal laboratory was established. By contrast, the administration's budget allocated the RITM an average of about 7 million annually from 1981 to 1985, largely for basic operating expenses and personnel services. The institution was also renamed, having originally been proposed as the "Philippine Japan Research Institute for Tropical Diseases." The institute's output was criticised in underground publications during the martial law regime because its research findings were not being released in the Philippines, and were instead only being submitted to JICA to satisfy grant requirements, given that the majority of the patients it served were research patients, while the Philippine health system had an overwhelming need to meet basic health services. The institute thus became associated with the administration's supposed "edifice complex" - propaganda projects designed to be impressive showcases of the administration's achievements but whose actual development impact at the time was questionable. Like many edifice complex projects, RITM was located only in Manila, limiting access to it by citizens from elsewhere on the Philippine archipelago. Marukosu giwaku Criticism of these and similar funding practices which helped prop up of the Marcos regime eventually became known as the Marukosu giwaku (マルコス疑惑), or