PH ranked 69th happiest country around the globe — UN report

FILE: Group of ladies at a clothes stall at a street market in Silay City, Philippines. (Photo by Brian Evans/Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)

Of all the 156 countries, the Pearl of the Orient Seas is the 69th happiest country on Earth, according to the 2019 World Happiness Report released on Wednesday, March 20, the day everyone celebrates the International Day of Happiness.

Based on the report published by the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the Philippines got a score of 5.631 in 2019, a two-notch higher than from its position in 2018.

Topping the list of the world’s happiest country is Finland (7.769), followed by Denmark (7.600), Norway (7.554), Iceland (7.494), Netherlands (7.488), Switzerland (7.480), Sweden (7.343), New Zealand (7.307), and Canada (7.278).

Completing the top 10 is Austria with 7.246 points.

The Philippines is the third happiest country in Southeast Asia, following Singapore and Thailand which ranked 34th and 52nd, respectively.

The 2019 World Happiness Report, written by a group of independent experts, “focuses on happiness and the community: how happiness has evolved over the past dozen years, with a focus on the technologies, social norms, conflicts and government policies that have driven those changes.”

The latest report is the seventh to be brought out since April 2012. It was released a few days after a survey, done by the Social Weather Stations (SWS), showing that 87 percent of Filipinos assessed their life in general as “very/fairly happy,” while 39 percent of them said they are “very happy” and 48 percent said they are “fairly happy.”

Even though majority of its 1,440 survey respondents said they are happy with their lives, the pollster noted that the latest “happiness” score declined by seven points from the record-high 94 percent recorded in December 2017 and the “lowest” in four years since the 85 percent in December 2014.

Meanwhile, the SWS added that the “unhappiness” score of 13 percent in December 2018 is the “highest” since the 15 percent in December 2014.

The poll revealed that unhappiness was “highest” in Metro Manila at 17 percent, followed by Balance Luzon at 14 percent. Visayas placed third at 11 percent up from six percent, and Mindanao came last at 11 percent up from four percent.