The business of trust

As a business owner, I price my work in two ways. For this column, and anything else I write for pay, the publication sets a fixed price. I can insist on my number, but in the end the buyer usually prevails.

For business and communication consulting, I charge what I believe is fair, considering all inputs. I work as a Knowledge and IP (Intellectual Property) Creator. A laptop and an internet connection get it done. No factories, no production lines, no workers other than me.

Most businesses do not have that luxury. Their prices depend on forces big and small, inside the company and outside it, too many to list. Businesses do not operate in a vacuum.

So, if public trust in business is driven largely by pricing, or by how fair prices seem, as a recent study shows, then that trust is also shaped by forces beyond a business’s control. Add false or misleading posts on social media about pricing, and the damage grows.

I raise this to put in perspective what the 2026 Philippine Trust Study, released this week, seems to be implying. The EON Group commissioned it. The Department of Sociology and Anthropology (DSA) and the Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC) of Ateneo de Manila University conducted it.

The official release says “public trust in Philippine business remains conditional, with an overall score of 72.0 out of 100 in the first Philippine Business Trust Index.” The release adds that “No business sector reached the Robust Trust category nationally [81-90], while concerns about prices emerged as the leading reason Filipinos distrust businesses.”

Price-related concerns led the complaints. The release stated that “Price-related concerns featured prominently among respondents who identified a least-trusted sector,” specifically “prices perceived as too high or unreasonable (19.7%), unclear prices or fees (14.7%), and hidden charges (11.7%).” Conversely, “value for money was cited by 18.6% as a reason for trusting their most-trusted sector.”

But a caveat sits in the data. A majority, 53.1% of respondents, named no least-trusted sector at all. Only the other 46.9%, or 375 people, named one. That makes the headline 19.7% a share of those 375, or about 74 people. Out of 800 respondents, that is roughly one in 11. We cannot be sure what the silent majority means. It may be satisfaction. It may be indifference. Either way, it is not a complaint.

What earns trust? The release says “honesty emerging as the leading priority: 34.6% of respondents ranked it first.” Reputation alone counts for little. “Reputation ranked last among the 16 attributes, and only 6.8% of respondents cited it as a reason for trusting their most-trusted sector.”

The release puts it this way: “Put simply, reputation is the receipt, not the reason. People want resibo: proof that businesses are honest, deliver what they promise, and stand behind what they offer.”

Now the irony, and it is alarming for the broader economy. The lowest-scoring sectors are BPO and ICT (68.6), Tourism and Travel (68.6), and Real Estate and Construction (67.7). The study places all three in what it calls Fragile Trust. Those are also among the sectors the government targets for growth.

Still, the data can be read in more than one way. The release reads the results as distrust tied to specific business behaviors, with price complaints leading the list. That is a fair reading, and part of it is hard to argue with.

Unclear prices (14.7%), hidden charges (11.7%), and dealings that were not honest or transparent (14.4%) are about conduct. Those are the business’s doing. A company that hides a fee deserves the distrust.

But prices “too high” is another matter. The fieldwork ran from May to August, months after the US-Israel war on Iran began on Feb. 28 and sent fuel prices soaring. Inflation hit 7.2% in April and stayed above 6% through August, against 1.5% in August last year.

Respondents were likely reacting to their grocery and fuel bills, not weighing a company’s moral character. By its own caveats, the study describes one point in time and cannot show cause and effect. Even the release frames its findings against inflation, noting that it reached 7.8% in October.

So, the “too high” share may say as much about household budgets as about business behavior. The study cannot tell the two apart. The release calls this a baseline, and the study comes out every two years. Future editions can adjust the design to separate them.

Social media adds another layer. When prices are rising and wallets are thin, people are quick to believe viral, emotional claims about greed, price gouging, and hidden charges.

For a solo producer like me, the price reflects fair value directly. For large operations, pricing is a tangled necessity that is easily misread and used as a weapon online. Yet size does not seem to protect anyone. Large enterprises scored 72.3 and micro, small and medium enterprises 71.7. The 0.6-point gap is within the study’s margin of error.

Now to the study’s makeup. The main survey is solid on paper. It polled 800 adults in 160 barangays, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 points, and the release calls it nationally representative. The consumer voice is there, and the numbers above come from it.

The softer spot is the story around the numbers. It came from group interviews with 82 people, and the groups leaned toward those who run and regulate business: 32 government regulators and 23 business owners and representatives, against 19 workers and only eight consumers.

The release uses them to describe things like regulatory green lanes and trusted brands holding customers when prices rise. By the release’s own words, those are views of participants, not measured results.

In fairness, the researchers say as much. The study is descriptive and exploratory. Its survey results reflect reported perceptions, not independently verified assessments of business conduct, and its group interviews are not statistically representative. I second those cautions. The trouble is that few readers get to the fine print.

The study has real potential as a gauge of business conduct. It already breaks the scores down by nine sectors and by company size, which is a good start. But in the figures released so far, the reasons for distrust are reported for everyone together, not sector by sector.

A sharper tool would show why people distrust each sector, such as how clearly a homebuyer was told about fees in real estate, and give businesses, consumers, and regulators insights they can actually use.

The release says Filipinos want resibo. A trust study should expect the same test. To its credit, this one published its method and its limits. The next edition can go further. Report the reasons for distrust sector by sector. Find a way to separate the price shock from business behavior. Give consumers more than eight seats at the table.

That matters beyond the boardroom. If the government keeps betting its growth on real estate, tourism, and BPO, a misread index could send it chasing the wrong fix, treating price anger as proof of bad conduct. Consumers would pay for it in prices that stay high. Honest businesses would pay for it in distrust they never earned.

Trust is earned with receipts. So is a study’s.

Marvin Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippine Press Council.

matort@yahoo.com