I would say that a sizable amount of Filipinos do believe in conspiracy theories, but definitely not "most"… generally speaking "Philippine society" as a whole would consider you to be a "weirdo" for believing in such things, you would probably even get "bashed".
Filipinos don't have the same type of distrust, animosity and paranoia against "The Establishment", like that of what we see in the USA and other Western nations.
- In fact, in the USA a lot of people think that the pandemic is just a "hoax", which causes them to not exercise "proper caution", which then spreads the virus even more.
- Meanwhile, in the Philippines the vast majority of the population do believe in the news reports and generally follow government guidelines to slow the spread on the virus. No one here protests against the tight restrictions and no one here protests against the compulsory wearing of masks, etc etc etc.
Now, to answer your question, generally speaking people may believe in conspiracy theories either to feel like they are still in "control" of the situation, (this is generally the case in the USA)… or if they aren't well educated, in other words "gullible", (this is generally the case in a lot of developing countries, including the Philippines).
- The main difference is that Americans who believe in conspiracy theories tend to make elaborate stories to justify why they believe in the conspiracy, but Filipinos who believe in conspiracy theories often don't have an elaborate reason as to why they believe in them… they probably just saw it on Facebook and automatically believe what they saw.
Don't get me wrong, when it comes down to it, I don't think that one is "better" than the other… but I find that those who create elaborate stories to justify their beliefs to be much more "annoying" than those who are just "gullible".
