The results of a survey conducted by SWS (Social Weather Stations), a Philippine research institute, from April 19 to 27 this year were released.
The survey was conducted face-to-face with 1,440 people, 360 each from Metro Manila, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, to determine if their quality of life would improve over the next year.
The survey results showed that 44% of respondents said it will get better, only 4% said it will get worse, and 39% said it will stay the same.
The personal optimism level, which subtracts "will get better" from "will get worse," is higher at 39. It is apparently 3 points lower than in the previous survey (December 2021) and 5 points lower than before the pandemic (December 2019).
Still, many are optimistic.
The Luzon region and Metro Manila are particularly high at 47 and 43 points, respectively. The Visayas region, on the other hand, is slightly lower as it has 25 points, although this is 5 points higher than the previous survey.
By education level, those who graduated from college or graduate school had 50, those who graduated from junior high school, technical school, high school, vocational school, or entered college had 45, and those who completed junior high school or high school had 30, suggesting that the higher the education level, the more optimistic the prospects for the future.
When asked about changes in their quality of life compared to a year ago, 34% said it has gotten worse, 32% said it has gotten better, and 34% said it has stayed the same.
It is very typical of the Philippines that one-third of the respondents answered that the situation has worsened, while many answered that it will improve in the future.
If a survey were conducted on Japanese people under the same circumstances, I think many would give pessimistic answers.
What was interesting about the survey was that 12.2% answered "yes" to the question, "Have you been hungry and had nothing to eat at least once in the last three months?" The SWS reports that this is an estimate for the Philippines as a whole of 3.1 million people.
Even so, Filipinos live positively without being pessimistic. I think this is something that the Japanese should learn from.
