Trust and governance

There is a growing sense that people’s trust must be one of the most critical dimensions of effective governance. Gallup International’s 2002 Voice of the People Survey interviewed 36,000 respondents from July to September 2002 and confirmed the inability of far too many people to trust the principal institutions of governance – parliament, congress, the legal system – in their respective countries.

The cited survey’s findings could be statistically generalized to reflect the views of 1.4 billion citizens in 46 countries across six continents. These countries came from the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Eastern and Central Europe, the European Union, the non-European Union and North America. (The Philippines unfortunately was not part of this timely international study.)

Fully two-thirds of the survey’s 36,000 respondents repudiated the view that their country is "governed by the will of the people." It is remarkable that of 46 countries probed for national governance being consonant with the people’s will, only four (the Dominican Republic, Israel, Luxembourg and Malaysia) showed a majority of their respondents agreeing with the proposition. Most surprisingly, respondents from "mature democracies" like the United States and the United Kingdom flunked their own systems of governance in this no-frills democratic test.

The crisis of popular confidence in society’s leading governance institutions is further reflected by these isntitutions’ inability to gain majority trust ratings from the survey respondents. The press/media, trade unions and labor, global companies and even the large national companies settled for minorities expressing much or some trust for them.

As for institutions that are trusted by sizeable majorities (58 percent to 69 percent) of the respondents worldwide, the inclusion of the armed forces and the police might come as a surprise. The survey analysts attempt to provide a reassuring note: "Given the very low trust expressed in democratic institutions, it may be alarming to some that the armed forces are ranked highest overall. However, very high ratings in countries currently in a state of heightened alert (including India, Israel, Pakistan, and the United States) contribute to the high scores. The two regions with the least trust in the armed forces today are Latin America and Africa, both regions that have experienced military rule and civil wars in their recent history." (Filipinos who may be flirting with the idea of resurrecting martial rule as a cure to their nation’s multiple ills would do well to review the military’s record in exercising governance in these two areas of the world. Familiarity, to be useful, does not have to breed contempt; it is enough that familiarity excites much caution, i.e. sufficient prudence in designing and provoking scenarios where the military is assigned a primary political role. Armed genies are not easily persuaded to march themselves back to their barracks or their bottled retreats.)

The problem of people’s trust in their institutions may be further compounded by their inability to trust even the country’s political leaders or influential personalities. Particularly for the Philippines, a nation admittedly in crisis, this handicap is most debilitating. As 2002 draws to a close, hardly any public figure manages to gain the trust of a majority of Filipinos. With the exception of former Department of Education Secretary Raul Roco, Senator Juan Flavier and – at least for a quarter – Senator Edgardo Angara, people apparently find it difficult to repose their faith in anyone regardless of creed, political affiliation, ethnic identification or sex.

Four presidents including the incumbent are unable to gain the trust of a majority of Filipinos in 2002. Senators and congressmen bearing different political colors are equally distrusted. Eminent spiritual advisers fail to impress an increasingly skeptical and perhaps already cynical people.

Trust probes for selected groups do not yield much comfort either, as findings from the latest November 2002 Pulse Asia Ulat ng Bayan Survey suggest. It may be understandable that Filipinos nationwide would have only 11 percent expressing trust in the CPP-NPA even as 68 percent would still recommend that government continued peace negotiations with this much distrusted group. Or that a mere 19 percent would find the big oil companies in the country deserving of trust, given their often convoluted rationalizations for frequent, hefty price increases and exceedingly rare, token price roll-backs. Or that no more than 24 percent would grant MERALCO their trust in the face of a Supreme Court ruling ordering the utility firm to refund ostensibly illegal PPA fees collected from a much-suffering public.

But how does one explain why among the adults of a predominantly Catholic population, no more than 41 percent would consider the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines a trustworthy group? When a people dare not trust its biggest and most influential congregation of spiritual advisers in these most trying times, who are there left to trust? The politicians?

For those who mean well by this country, there may be no more urgent task than reviving the Filipinos’ extremely debilitated sense of trust in their society’s institutions and national leaders. Public confidence-building measures for these institutions and their authorities gain in credibility and become immensely more effective as citizens perceive that their institutions and their authorities increasingly work as they are formally designated to work. The time for political sleight of hand, spin-doctor management and illusory governance is clearly over.

Without adequate public trust, democratic governance stands no chance whatsoever. At most, an illusory "strong republic" might be forced by irersponsible authorities to birth and then martially imposed on a nation. Denied a critical level of public trust, any "strong republic" will be short-lived. History has attested to this truism far too many times. Only those who march in folly will dare contest this historical trend.