Towards a Proactive Crisis Communication Plan: An Analysis of the Social Housing Finance Corporation's Services and the Agency's Communication Strategies and Practices

The Social Housing Finance Corporation (SHFC) operates in a high-risk environment, frequently exposed to natural disasters, displacement, and socio-economic challenges. Despite these vulnerabilities, the SHFC currently lacks a structured and validated crisis communication plan, which poses risks of public distrust and operational delays. Grounded by W. Timothy Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude, and Satisfaction (AKAS) framework, the researched used convergent parallel mixed-method design. Quantitative data were gathered through structured surveys administered to 384 member-beneficiaries across Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and the National Capital Region (NCR) to establish a baseline of stakeholders’ perception. Simultaneously, qualitative insights were obtained through purposive interviews with seven (7) key SHFC officials from departments to analyze existing communication strategies and practices. The findings revealed that while SHFC maintains high satisfaction and awareness rate among beneficiaries there are critical gaps in risk readiness and a need for humanized, segmented messaging to address the diverse need of vulnerable communities. Notably, Mindanao recorded the lowest levels of awareness and knowledge regarding core services, particularly in complaints handling and inquiries, compared to Luzon, Visayas and the NCR. These identified gaps create substantial reputational risk, as stakeholders in these areas may resort to external platforms for grievances due to lack of localized plan and information. As a direct result of these findings, the study produced a Crisis Communication Plan specifically for Mindanao. This tailored plan institutionalizes appropriate crisis response strategies––such as Deny, Diminish, Rebuild, and Bolstering––while mandating the use of local languages (e.g. Bisaya and Chavacano) and community-based channels to bridge the identified communication gaps. By focusing on Mindannao area which has the highest need, the study contributes to institutional resilience and supports Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 in building safe and resilient human settlements.