SWS: Filipinos express different expectations on quality of life in next 12 months

FILE: Passengers wait for public transport vehicles along Quezon Avenue in front of Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City. (PNA photo by Joey O. Razon)

What do Filipinos think will happen to their lives in the next 12 months?

Filipinos gave different answers to this question asked in the latest survey of Social Weather Stations (SWS) released on Friday, November 6, with some expressing optimism that their lives will be better, while others thinking it will not.

The survey, conducted from September 17 to 20, showed that 32 percent of Filipinos expect their personal quality-of-life will improve in the next 12 months, while 30 percent expect it will be worse.

Meanwhile, 33 percent of survey respondents expect the quality of their lives to remain the same and six percent of them are unsure.

The SWS said the latest result led to a net optimism score of +2. Although classified as “mediocre,” the pollster said the score still improve from the “very low” -10 recorded in July 2020. It reached a record high of +47 in March 2019 and fell to a record-low of -18 in May 2020, amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

Net optimism was highest in Balance Luzon at +12, Metro Manila at +5, and Visayas at -14. The pollster noted that net optimism becomes better in all areas, but not in Mindanao as its score dropped from -5 in July 2020 to -8 in September.

The same survey also showed that net optimism improves across education groups, except high school dropouts which score decreased from -10 in July to -14 in September. The SWS, however, still considered both scores as a development from the -27 in May.

Moreover, net optimism was found to be “significantly lower” among those families who experienced severe hunger than those who experience moderate hunger. The score among those from severely hungry families is at -47, compared to the -7 among those from moderately hungry families.

The probability-based survey, where 1,249 respondents took part, was done using a mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing. It has a sampling error margin of plus-minus three percent for national percentages, plus-minus six percent for Metro Manila, plus-minus five percent for Balance Luzon, plus-minus six percent for Visayas, and plus-minus six percent for Mindanao.

The SWS earlier released a survey in which 82 percent of Filipinos said the quality of their lives became worse in the past year. This was far from the six percent who said their lives got better and the 11 percent who said it was the same as before.