TRUST IS THE FOUNDATION OF ANY RELATIONSHIP

 

"Three things you should never break – promises, trust, and someone's heart," an anonymous writer quoted. While "promises" are for the candidates to keep after the elections, "someone's heart" is for lovers to nurture after Valentine's day. "Trust" is for us to weigh up in this article. What is trust? An anonymous internet quote could help us out in its definition.

"The most expensive thing in the world is Trust. It takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair."

A FRAGILE TRUST

The story of John Blair is about Trust – the loss and its devastating and far-reaching impact. Blair, the infamous serial plagiarist, was caught plagiarizing the works of other reporters. A documentary, A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at The New York Times, tells the shocking story of how he rocked the entire world of journalism and blemished the reputation of The New York Times (NYT) amid its winning a record seven Pulitzer Prizes for its 9/11 coverage a year earlier.

Trust takes years to build

"Trust is the coin of our realm," NYT reporter and columnist Clyde Haberman said about the scandal. "We trust that people we interview are being straight with us. We trust that our confidential sources are decent folks. We trust that our reporters went to the places they say they went and spoke with the people they say they met. Naturally, trust doesn't mean blind faith... But generally speaking, we are no different from anyone else on this planet: We accept that the people we deal with and work with, are honorable."

Trust takes seconds to break.

"I think of Jayson Blair as an accident that ended my newspaper career in the same unpredictable way that a heart attack or a plane crash might have," Howell Raines, NYT executive editor recalled in his piece in The Atlantic. "It was like stepping on a land mine."

Trust takes forever to repair.

"The Times faulted itself for being 'taken in'..." wrote Margaret Sullivan in the NYT article "Repairing the Credibility Cracks." "Anything that damages credibility – a rogue reporter's lies, a too-trusting attitude toward government sources and the prevailing narrative – has to be guarded energetically. The Times has taken important steps toward that end."

NYT executive editor Jill Abramson said that one of the greatest lessons of the Blair scandal was "how concerned, hurt and angry our readers were because this was contrary to everything we stand for – the trust and authenticity that people attach to The Times."

That NYT scandal was two decades old. Yet, reading a PDI Endy Bayuni's commentary is a déjà vu in PH today.

"Unfortunately, in the migration to the digital world, many media institutions are discarding the principles of good journalism in the competition for clicks and views. When they set speed as the overarching goal, they sacrifice accuracy and fairness, the two chief tenets of journalism... In reclaiming its role as the fourth pillar of democracy, the press must know that its future hinges... on its ability to nurture public trust and support."

TRUST IS THE FOUNDATION

While Trust is a foundation of leadership in the corporate world, moreover, it is the bedrock of relationship in the realm of family and community.

Stephen Covey, author of "Seven Basic Habits of Highly Effective People," uses the Emotional Bank Account (EBA) metaphor to build up an interpersonal relationship. "Deposits" are things we do to increase trust in such relationship as honesty, integrity, and decency, while "withdrawals" are acts that decrease trust like lies, dishonesty, and corruption, among others.

The election campaign period has triggered already not so few EBA "withdrawals" that affect relationships in the family and community.

“Among friends and family, frontal attacks are rare, while deliberate silences are more abundant. But it is also useful to decode the posts that unfold in your newsfeeds, as they contain more general commentaries about the political proclivities of friends and family. And it is here you get to witness the transformation in the political landscape that now extends into your own private cyberspaces – toxic, divided, sad,” wrote The Manila Times columnist Antonio Contreras in his column “Family Ties and Friendships in Peril Because Of Politics.”

Here are moral issues to address and valid questions to ask.

Many years ago, I worked in a manufacturing plant; she, in a bank. After we got married, we started filing our joint income tax returns. Sad to say, our combined withholding taxes would always fall short in our joint income tax due. Out of our civic duty, we paid the difference from our hard-earned savings. We did it yearly until the computerization perfected the system: our combined withholding taxes added up to our required joint income tax --  preserving our hard-earned savings.

Come election, what if I vote for Marcos Jr. who failed to pay his income taxes? Would not such a vote be an EBA “withdrawal” in the eyes of my family, especially my wife that could affect our relationship?

I am an engineer with post-graduate diplomas; my wife, a CPA. During our corporate heydays, we framed and displayed our diplomas and certificates including our kids’ school achievements on our living room wall out of honor and pride in our family’s well and truly earned credentials and accomplishments.

Come election, what if I vote for Marcos Jr. who lied about his education at Oxford University? Would not such a vote be an EBA “withdrawal” in the eyes of my family and the community I belong to that could affect relationships?

In our entire corporate life, out of our personal belief, we never brought home company properties like the seeming harmless bond papers or other company-owned valuable things.

Come election, what if I vote for Marcos Jr. whose family plundered our nation and has never apologized for it? Would not such a vote be an EBA “withdrawal” in the eyes of my family and the community I belong to that could affect relationships?

We built our home and protected our property with secured doors, window grilles, gates, and fences for our family’s safety and security.

Come election, what if I vote for Marcos Jr. who has kowtowed to China that has been pulling apart a huge chunk of our territory making it part of its own, and preventing us from exploring our natural resources? Would not such a vote be an EBA “withdrawal” in the eyes of my family and the community I belong to that could affect relationships?

We are members of a Catholic community who have walked our talks as regards Jesus Christ’s teachings and have offered our talents and resources for uplifting the lives of the poor.

Come election, what if I vote for Marcos Jr. who was endorsed by a Pastor who sexually abused women and minors as alleged by ex-followers and the US prosecutors? Would not such a vote be an EBA “withdrawal” in the eyes of my family and the community I belong to that could affect relationships?

Let me conclude this article with an excerpt from Ma. Ceres P. Doyo’s PDI column “The Unrepentant and the Unforgiving”:

“A silent tsunami is taking over our value system. Something is being reversed and revised little by little. Those who stand for the truth after having labored to find it, or have experienced the brutality and cruelty of it in their lives are to stand aside silently, play humble  and shy so as not to be called hypocrites, holier-than-thou, unforgiving. Yeah, while evildoers strut about with impunity. As if to be upright earn you a badge of shame.”

Nah. Like it or not, our vote will affect (call it cancel culture, curating, consumer’s choice, Newton’s third law of motion, or whatever) our personal relationships after the election.