Survey: Filipinos express less confidence in PPPs
The partnership between the Philippines’ public and the private sector has not yet won the confidence of many Filipinos who still “largely disagree” that the two institutions work together effectively.
This is according to the fourth Philippine Trust Index (PTI), a nationwide survey that examines Filipinos’ levels and drivers of trust in six key Philippine institutions, which are government, businesses, non-government organizations, media, academe, and the church.
The data, which was revealed on Thursday in Makati, showed that Filipinos largely disagree that the government and businesses work together well.
“Only two in every ten Filipinos think that partnerships between the Government and Businesses positively impact the Philippines,” the PTI results showed.
“Fewer Filipinos believe that businesses help the government in nation building, while only 12 percent of the general public believes that the Government helps Filipino businesses that expand abroad,” it added.
Moreover, the index showed that there’s a declining trust in government.
“In the eyes of both the general and informed publics, Local Government Units enjoy the highest trust ratings among the different government sub-institutions while the House of Representatives is the least trusted. The largest loss of trust was felt by the Office of the President, declining by a 13 percentage point, since 2012. On the other hand, the Senate is recovering the trust of the people this 2015 after its steep loss between 2012 and 2014,” it pointed out.
Meanwhile, the index revealed that the most trusted industries in the country’s business sector are healthcare and telecommunications, while general public’s confidence in legal services, advertising and public relations, alcohol and tobacco, and mining industries had been on a downtrend.
Malyn Molina, managing director of Engage, said on Thursday that the healthcare, telecommunications, and water services sectors lead as the most trusted industries among the Business Sector.
Engage is the newly launched public affairs and government relations business of EON Group, which is the company behind PTI.
“Trust in businesses is heavily driven by how companies treat their employees – a constant concern of Filipinos since the first PTI,” the PTI results showed.
“Almost half of the informed publicly listed employee-focused criteria among their main trust drivers. Both the general and informed publics cite ‘provides good salaries and benefits’ as well as ‘practices fair labor’ as the top two drivers of trust in businesses,” it added.
Molina also said that out of all the industries covered by the survey, telecommunications as well as banks and financial services gained the most favor from Filipinos.
Trust ratings on both industries moved up six notches among the general public and 11 notches among the informed public from 2012.
“When asked to list their most trusted companies in the Philippines, almost one in every three companies mentioned are either manufacturers or malls. A total of 30 percent of the general public and 36 percent of the informed public enumerated companies in the
Manufacturing sector, while 28 percent of the general public and 27percent of the informed public named malls and supermarkets. Other sectors often mentioned include banks and utility companies,” the data further specified.
On the other hand, Molina said that legal services, advertising and public relations, alcohol and tobacco, and mining industries are the least trusted institutions in 2015.
The 2015 PTI Launch was attended by executives from local and international companies, representatives from business associations and NGOs, members of the academe and the media.
The 4th Philippine Trust Index covered 1,620 respondents from various socioeconomic, educational and demographic backgrounds. Face-to-face interviews with respondents from urban and rural areas in NCR, North Luzon, South Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao were conducted to glean insights on the various factors that contribute to Filipinos’ trust in institutions.