Filipinos trust 'church' the most - survey

MANILA, Philippines – Filipinos trust the church among all institutions in the country, revealed a joint study by the Ateneo Graduate School of Business and stakeholder firm EON.

The Church received a 68 percent trust rating followed by the academe with 45.1 percent, showed the Philippine Trust Index survey conducted on 1,575 respondents in 2012.

EON, meanwhile, clarified that church refers to "an overall group that includes all religious institutions."

"One of the key findings is that the church received the highest trust rating across respondents – this reflects trust in religious institutions as understood by individual respondents," said Arnel Vasquez, media relations officer of EON.

The media, meanwhile, ranked third with a 32.2 percent trust level, while the government remains among the least trusted institutions with only 15 percent.

People's trust in the government, however, has already jumped from its 7 percent trust level in 2011 when the survey was first conducted.

"The findings show us that establishing trust is a dynamic process that all institutions need to pay close attention to – and we have seen in that in 2012 trust levels increased for the government, media and the church," EON chairman Junie del Mundo said in a statement.

The non-profit and business sectors are the least trusted institutions reaching only 12 percent and 8.9 percent ratings respectively.

Trust drivers

The Philippine Trust Index also measured the public's reasons for trusting an institution and suggested traits for the groups to remain credible.

The respondents said that the Church, for one, can maintain its trust level by providing spiritual guidance first and foremost while being a role model of holiness and maintaining its separation from the state.

Truthfulness is the single factor that drives the credibility of the media, the report showed.

Government, too, can increase its trust rating most importantly by keeping away from corruption and also by helping the poor, keeping its campaign promises and creating jobs.

Businesses can also be more credible by improving its treatment of employees and workers while providing fair wages and salaries. Companies can also offer fairly priced goods, express a concern for society and pay taxes.

The quality of teachers, meanwhile, is the most important trait for the academe to have to remain credible. This characteristic should be followed by improved education standards, lower school fees, school discipline and improved school facilities, the survey said.

Gaps

The survey, launched on Wednesday at the Ateneo Professional Schools campus, identifies results from respondents both from the "informed" and "general" public.

"The informed public was generally less trusting of institutions than the general public," the report said.

The "informed" respondents, who were characteristically media consumers and had spent more than two years in college, rated all leading institutions lower than their "general" counterparts, who have less media consumption and have mainly not gone beyond their second year in college.

For example, the informed public placed the Church on a 56.3 percent trust level while the general public rated it with 58.1 percent.

The academe and the media also got lower trust ratings from the informed public than from the general public.