Editorial: Trust and happiness

IN THE World Happiness Report (WHR) 2021, Finland was the happiest country. It was followed by Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, New Zealand, and Austria.

Meanwhile, in the regions of East Asia and Southeast Asia, Taiwan was the happiest country at No. 24. Singapore (No. 32), Thailand (No. 54), Japan (No. 56) were also among the happier nations in the region.

The Philippines is at No. 61 in the 2018-2020 rankings. The Philippines was happier compared to South Korea (No. 62), Vietnam (No. 79), Malaysia (No. 81), Indonesia (No. 82), and China (No. 84).

According to WHR 2021, which is published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the rankings are based on "the average life evaluations reported by respondents in the Gallup surveys."

The Gallup World Poll is the principal source of data in the WHR 2020. The survey "asks respondents to evaluate their current life as a whole using the image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a 10 and worst possible as a 0."

Researchers compared the 2017-2019 and 2018-2020 data to determine the ranking of nations in terms of happiness.

After the researchers took a deeper dive into the data they received, they found out that "individuals with high social and institutional trust levels were happier than those living in less trusting and trustworthy environments."

The WHR 2021 found that trust plays an important role in fighting the pandemic and getting people to act on it.

"Trust and cooperative social norms not only facilitate rapid and cooperative responses, which themselves improve the happiness of citizens, but also demonstrate to people the extent to which others are prepared to do benevolent acts for them, and for the community in general" the report states.

The report adds "seeing trust in action has been found to lead to post-disaster increases in trust, especially where government responses are considered to be sufficiently timely and effective."

"Trust played an equally strong role in helping countries to find and implement successful Covid-19 strategies," the report states.

Based on the recent findings of the WHR 2021, if the national government and other concerned parties want to improve the compliance of the people towards minimum health standards and respond accordingly to fight the pandemic, it must build trust among the people.

While trust rating towards the president is high -- 70-percent based on end-of-the year 2020 survey conducted by PUBLiCUS Asia Inc. and 91-percent in the October 2020 survey of Pulse Asia -- does the public have a high trust towards the Philippine government as a whole?

The controversies over the Covid-19 vaccine procurement, lack of transparency on certain information on the government's Covid-19 response, and some government officials and influential individuals not following minimum health standards may have affected the people's trust towards the government. This in turn could have affected how some respond or comply with the guidelines set by the government.

While there are many factors in play as to the increase in Covid-19 cases in the country, maybe rebuilding the trust of the people towards the government can help improve this situation.

As the WHR 2021 states, trust has helped some nations mitigate the effects of Covid-19 and as a result, people have remained happy.