How trusting are Filipinos?

After opinion surveys turned into a fad as gauge of popularity or lack of it  by those in government and in politics, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia have become the basic barometer to test one’s chances of winning in elections in our country. To its credit, the pre-election surveys conducted by both the SWS and Pulse Asia have more or less correctly predicted the final results of the 12-man senatorial race in the last May 13 polls.

While the winners’ list was largely correct, it was only the rankings of the winning senators in the official results that differed from the pre-election surveys.

As standard procedure, the surveys are done on specific timeframe, using face-to-face interviews of respondents that are categorized in gender, age, income, educational attainment, etc. The acceptable statistical margin of error, due to various reasons, is plus or minus three percent or at most, five percent.

Trust and approval ratings obtained from sample population on these opinion surveys can make, or unmake people before the eyes of the public. Though unfairly, I must stress, because the perception or imagined perception taken from the sample population used in these opinion surveys does not necessarily represent the sentiments of the entire populace.

Surveys, after all, are just marketing tools and guides for decision-making.

Just like any other business though, SWS and Pulse Asia have profitably sustained their operations since they started doing commissioned surveys since 1985 and 1999, respectively.

So when I was invited last week to attend the First Roundtable Discussion on the 2012 Philippine Trust Index, I would learn later that there is a new survey-taking group that was organized more than two years ago. The Ateneo de Manila (AdMU) Graduate School of Business and EON, The Stakeholder Relations Firm, have conducted a regular joint research activity called The Philippine Trust Index.

The Philippine Trust Index, or PTI, was launched in August 2011 as the first survey in the country aimed at determining the level of public trust on key institutions in the Philippines, the factors that affect their perception on these institutions, and building trust-based relationships. The Ateneo Graduate School of Business partnered with EON for the conduct of the 2012 PTI survey which expanded it to include academe as stakeholder group.

Specifically, the index gauges the respondents’ trust in government, business, the church, media and non-government organizations (NGOs). The results of the 2012 PTI, launched in February 2012, were formally presented to us at the roundtable discussion last Tuesday.

Michael L. Tan, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Sciences and Philosophy of the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City presented his paper on “Trust and the Filipino: Perspectives from the Social Sciences.” On the other hand, Dennis T.Gonzales, Ph.D., faculty of the Ateneo Graduate School of Business and Ateneo School of Government, presented his paper “Uneven Trust in Key Institutions.” Clarita R.Carlos, Ph.D., UP political science professor, was moderator.

Many of the PTI results were for academic discussions only. The roundtable, however, became timely as it was taking place a day after the state of the nation address (SONA) of President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III at the joint ceremonial opening of the 16th Congress last week.

Based on the PTI survey, the Office of the President posted the highest trust rating among all government institutions at 24.8 percent in the urban areas and a much higher trust rating of 31 percent in the rural areas. Coming next, close to the President’s trust rating, is the Supreme Court (SC) at 18.3 percent in both urban and rural areas. The Cabinet of P-Noy as a whole came in third with 17.8 percent trust rating in the urban areas while getting higher trust rating of 20.2 percent in the rural areas.

The Senate got 14.3 percent in the urban areas and 16.5 percent in rural areas. The House of Representatives got the lowest trust rating at 9.7 percent in the urban areas and 13.8 percent in the rural areas. The trust ratings, of course, refer to the members of the 15th Congress.

The PTI, however, showed the Church is the most trusted institution with 68.1 percent; followed by academe (45.1 percent); media (32.3 percent); government (15 percent); NGOs (12.1 percent); and business (8.9 percent).

In their evaluation of the survey results, President Aquino’s high trust ratings in the past three years could be attributed to his strong campaign against graft and corruption. An institution must be “free of graft and corruption” in order to be “trusted/trusted even better,” they pointed out. These sentiments are expressed in nearly four in ten (37 percent) urban respondents and three in ten (30 percent) rural respondents.

In the course of discussions, professor Gonzales advised the use of the term “index of perceived trustworthiness” and not “trust” because the respondents may or may not have actual dealing with the person or institutions under survey. To better approximate something subjective, he cited, the ratings could thus be called “imagined trustworthiness.”

Trying to explain the PTI results, professor Gonzales pointed out corruption/fraud, and incompetence/poor performance are the reasons why government has neutral trust rating compared to Church and academe. Gonzales suggested for more in-depth study on why NGOs are the least trusted institution.

Obviously, Filipinos have low trust in NGOs long before the P10-billion pork-barrel scam even came to light about an alleged group headed by Janet Lim-Napoles who purportedly pulled this off using a network of “bogus” NGOs.

From the sample population, the PTI indicated Filipinos in North Luzon are “more trusting” among the respondents. As to how trusting are Filipinos, the undecided block in the PTI showed one out of three respondents neither trust nor distrust the government, business and NGOs.

The ranks of undecided in the next PTI survey could shrink in the aftermath of P-Noy’s SONA. After his SONA bluster about losing patience on grafters at the Customs bureau, the limp-wristed reply to offers of resignation would tilt the balance of trust against the words of P-Noy.

So how trusting Filipinos would be to P-Noy in the next survey, your guess is as good as mine.