University News

TAP team visits Pasig Mayor's Office for new research

Emy Ruth Gianan, Brayan Paul D. Buten, News, Tiwala at Pagsunod Research Project

Researchers from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) paid a courtesy call to the Office of the Mayor of Pasig City, Victor Ma. Regis “Vico” Sotto, Thursday, February 6. The visit also served as an initial meeting to share the University’s pioneering research to understand the “tiwala” (trust) and “pagsunod” (submission) within governance contexts across three Philippine cities: Pasig City, Naga City, and Davao City. It seeks to provide insights into culturally grounded trust-based governance in urban Philippine settings.

“Trust varies in different settings, depending on the respondents. May mga tao na gustung-gusto sa akin, meron namang iba, ayaw nila,” Mayor Sotto shared. He suggested that there are indirect and nuanced strategies at play in building trust and community engagement, and that the research is an interesting and timely topic to explore and learn more from.

(Trust varies in different settings, depending on the respondents. Some people like me, some don’t.)

Tiwala at Pagsunod (TAP) Project is a university-funded research project under the Research Institute for Culture and Language (RICL) headed by Prof. Joseph Reylan Viray. Dr. Karl Patrick Mendoza of the Department of Communication Research leads the project, supported by Emy Ruth Gianan from the Department of Economics and student research assistants Angelou Pucayan, Benedict Taberdo, and Brayan Paul Buten.

The first phase of the project covers Pasig City which began this January 2025, while the next two cities will be explored in phases two and three from 2026 to 2027.

_{Note: Translation of direct quote done through Google Translate.}