Journal 2025 Vol.26 No.2
Editorial
Empowering Local Scholarship: The Centralized Roster of Philippine Medical Journals (CENTRAL)
Cecilia C. Maramba-Lazarte, M.D.

Philippine medical and health-related journals have long struggled with visibility, accessibility, and global recognition. As President of the Philippine Association of Medical Journal Editors (PAMJE), I wanted to find a way to address this problem. While browsing the web, I came across the African Journals Online (AJOL) platform, which has expanded global access to research published in African journals for 25 years. Their mission — to make African scholarship visible to the world — resonated deeply with me. I began to imagine what a similar platform could mean for the Philippines.

I shared this idea in one of our PAMJE meetings. Our officers, especially our Founding President Dr. Joey Lapeña, were fully supportive. Encouraged, I drafted a funding proposal and submitted it to the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD). The Research Information, Communication, and Utilization Division, headed by Ms. Ullyann Garcia, with Information and Products Services Head Ms. Violeta Intia, endorsed the proposal, and Dr. Jaime Montoya, PCHRD Executive Director, subsequently approved it. Aboard was Renzell Ann Parino, our Project Officer, to monitor our progress.

We began work in August 2023, and from there, we a dedicated team was assembled to bring the vision to life. See Figure 1. On November 21, 2024, during the PAMJE 5th Annual Meeting, we launched the Centralized Roster of Philippine Medical Journals (CENTRAL) (https://central.pamje.org)—a significant milestone in Philippine scholarly publishing. For the first time, the nation’s peer-reviewed medical and health journals are brought together on one integrated, accessible, and dynamic platform. This answers the call from our research community for greater visibility, accessibility, and credibility of local scientific outputs.

CENTRAL is more than a directory. It is a strategic platform that connects editors, authors, researchers, peer reviewers, and policymakers. It provides verified information on each journal’s scope, indexing status, editorial board, and submission guidelines. This empowers users to identify credible publication outlets and trustworthy sources of knowledge. In an era where open access and good ethical publishing are necessary in reshaping global scholarship, CENTRAL signals that Philippine journals are ready to engage globally on equal footing—upholding quality, relevance, and integrity.

https://doi.org/10.56964/pidspj20252602001
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