Who do you trust?

The Information Age has made it vital for everyone to learn to communicate. And to do so with transparency. Nothing can be hidden anymore. Through all the touch points that technology has opened up, communication now plays a key role in defining what one is about, is good at (or not), and believes in (or not). Who one’s tribe is, clan or advocacy grouping is.

Through online media we project whoever we are by the kind of photos we post, the statements and quotes we repost, the articles we choose to share, and the photos we “like.” Technology has forced us to bring the branding process to the forefront. Our own branding, if we were smart, aware and strategic. Or the businesses we run that become brands by themselves.

Three years ago, EON the Stakeholder Relations Firm (a company I co-founded 16 years ago), launched the proprietary study of the Philippine Trust Index (PTI). When we began this study, it was our way of doing public service in understanding the pulse of the Filipino people in the area of “trust.”

Why trust?

When we work on branding, people will gravitate towards brands they trust. When we talk of people, they gravitate to people, companies, places, institutions they trust. To understand the nature or pull of this “trust” factor was a key element for us as we serviced companies, and in a way, wanted to understand the “intangible” that draws people.

Trust is intrinsically a Filipino value. Its connection stems deep into our psyche as a people even with terms like “kalooban.” Cultural scholars have discoursed about this idea of a “shared interior space” of the Filipino — a common space in the psyche that finds expression in our culture.  The inner core of the Filipino is what we call “loob,” referring to the inner self, or, more specifically, to the internal dimension of a person’s identity.  A whole list of positive attributes can be found in this inner core — strength, the ability to have a debt of gratitude, resilience, humility, courage, goodness and other trustworthy qualities. The moment the person expresses all the negative attributes of the above, then this person is considered to have a “bad inner core.” When Filipinos all express and share these higher values in their lives, they become “as one.”

This shared “oneness” (again) finds expression in family ties and close community kinship and where we put great importance in our relationships. Thus, the Filipino is very relational, friendly and nurturing. And the Filipino will stretch for you if you have been called a “friend.” The Filipino will reach out to another in openness and friendliness, to make even foreigners enter our homes and be one with us. Our cultural capacity to nurture and care is manifested in the way our nurses and caregivers are appreciated all over the world, and how we have the capacity to open up to other cultures, are other examples.

The kalooban’s very core is trust. The kalooban operates from the goodness of the person’s interior values,  which are positive and therefore trusted. Now on its third year, EON’s PTI, small study it may be, lends itself to an analysis that attempts to connect it to our values as a people in trying to define the intangible called “trust.”

The PTI study ranks institutional trust ratings. These institutions are: as government, business, NGOs, media, church and academe. The latest PTI shows that an overwhelming majority of respondents regard communication as a crucial trust driver, and is a vital tool in gaining the Filipino’s trust. Nine out of 10 Filipinos think it is “very important” for government, businesses, NGOs and the media to communicate to its stakeholders. At least six out of 10 Filipinos also stated that they need to hear information about the government, business, NGOs and media at least two to three times, in order to believe it. However, almost half of the respondents need to hear information about the church ONLY ONCE in order for them to believe it. 

And on the third year of the study, the Church (75 percent  rating) as an institution is still (!!) the top of the list as the most trusted institution. The second is the academe (53 percent rating). This is interesting because both the Church (which defines our faith and the value that emanate from there) and the academe (which is responsible for teaching values in a structured way) are all about value systems. Honesty, integrity, ethics, morals…how to live right, good and fair. The PTI attempts to put into statistical data, the premise that Filipinos (unconsciously it seems) still trust the institutions that make a stand for our values.

EON continues this study, refining it to get more focused every time as the results have always shown that trust is dynamic and can be built or eroded anytime. The value that trust brings to any relationship is limitless, intangible.

What is clear in this exercise is that Filipinos know that trust can break communication barriers. Trust-building, for any institution, company or even brand personalities today should be taken seriously. Communications needs to be correct, transparent and honest for trust to be established.

This year, EON Stakeholder Relations Firm was awarded the Southeast Asia Consultancy of the Year by the Sabre Awards Asia Pacific, and the listed in Top 250 PR agencies in the World PR Report.

(The complete results from EON’s 2014 PTI can be obtained

from www.eon.com.ph/philippinetrustindex.)