Thirty-seven percent of Filipinos are optimistic that their lives will improve over the next 12 months, a non-commissioned survey shows.
Of the 1,200 respondents in Social Weather Stations’ (SWS) June 23-26 poll, 37% percent saying their quality-of-life will improve (termed by SWS as “Optimists”), while 7% said it will worsen (“Pessimists”). Fourty-two percent said it will stay the same, and 14% did not give an answer, SWS reported.
“The resulting Net Personal Optimism score is +30 (% Optimists minus % Pessimists), classified by SWS as very high (+30 to +39),” the polling company said in a statement on Friday.
“The June 2021 Net Personal Optimism score is six points above the high +24 in May 2021, but five points below the very high +35 in November 2020,” SWS said. “Still, the last three surveys show a continuing recovery from historic lows of -19 in May 2020 and -10 in July 2020.”
The local pollster attributed the six-point increase in the national personal optimism survey from May 2021 to June 2021 to the increases of five points in Metro Manila and 12 points in Balance Luzon.
The survey, which was conducted amid the implementation of relaxed quarantine rules in Manila, the capital, and nearby cities and provinces, had sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages and ±6% for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao, SWS said.
Last year, SWS recorded the highest proportion of pessimists, as the country battled the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. — Kyle Aristophere Atienza