At least 45 percent of Filipino adults are optimistic that their lives will improve in the next 12 months, the latest survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) shows.
The survey, conducted from March 26 to 29, also found 42 percent of Filipinos saying the quality of their lives will stay the same, while 6 percent said it will worsen. Eleven percent of the 1,200 respondents did not give an answer.
SWS noted that the net personal optimism score in the survey was +38, classified as very high. The March net personal optimism score, however, was six points lower than the “excellent” +44 in December 2022.
Compared to December 2022, Net Personal Optimism fell from excellent to very high in Balance Luzon, down by 6 points from +43 to +37.
It fell from very high to high in the Visayas, down by 10 points from +37 to +27. It stayed excellent in Metro Manila, although down by 4 points from +49 to +45. It also stayed excellent in Mindanao, hardly moving from +48 to +47.
The March 2023 survey found 29 percent of adult Filipinos saying their quality of life was better than twelve months before, 25 percent saying it got worse, and 46 percent saying it was the same (“Unchanged”), compared to a year ago.
In all surveys from 2019 to 2023, Net Personal Optimism has been higher among Gainers than among Losers and Unchanged.
On the other hand, the scores among the Unchanged have been slightly higher than among the Losers except in May, July, and September 2020, when the gap widened.
The March 2023 survey found that 9.8 percent of Filipino families, or an estimated 2.7 million, experienced involuntary hunger – being hungry and not having anything to eat – at least once in the past three months.
Net Personal Optimism was at very high levels of +39 among adults who belong to families that did not experience hunger in the past three months, +33 among those who belong to families that experienced hunger in general, and +36 among those who belong to families who experienced Moderate Hunger, compared to the fair +12 those who belong to families who experienced Severe Hunger.
