December 2016 was the happiest month for Filipinos in 20 years — SWS
March 24, 2017 | 9:21am
n this Jan. 16, 2015 photo, young Filipinos anticipate the arrival of Pope Francis at the MOA Arena. The happiness rating has always been very high among Filipinos since it started conducting such surveys in 1991.
Mikas Matsuzawa
MANILA, Philippines — The number of Filipinos who said that they are happy with their lives have reached the highest in two decades, a survey conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed.
The survey, conducted in December with the results released this week, showed that 91 percent of the 1,500 respondents said that they are “very happy” (46 percent) or “fairly happy” (45 percent) with their lives.
Only seven percent said that they were not very happy, while only two percent said that they were not happy at all.
The SWS said that the happiness rating has always been very high among Filipinos since it started conducting such surveys in 1991.
However, it noted that the latest figures were the highest in 20 years since the record-high 92 percent in June 1996.
“There have only been three instances wherein over 90 percent said they were very/fairly happy: June 1996 (92 percent), March 2015 (90 percent), and December 2016 (91 percent),” said the survey firm.
The December 2016 figure was also higher by two points from the 89 percent happiness rating obtained in June 2016.
The same survey also showed that 87 percent of Filipinos are either “very satisfied” (41 percent) or “fairly satisfied” (46 percent) with their lives.
Nine percent of the respondents said that they were not very satisfied, while four percent said that they are not satisfied at all.
The life satisfaction rating in December was lower by three points from the 90 percent obtained in September 2016.
10th-11th overall
The SWS, a member of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) that survey certain topics in different countries, said the Philippines tied with Great Britain and ranked 10th-11th among 44 countries in terms of happiness.
Portugal topped the list, followed by Iceland and Argentina (2-3), Switzerland (4), United States (5), Canada and Venezuela (6-7) and Australia and Netherlands (8-9).
In terms of general unhappiness, the Philippines ranked 16th out of 44 countries, said SWS.
The ISSP ranking is different from the happiness index released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) for the United Nations, which ranked the Philippines 72nd out of 155 countries.
Norway, which ranked the highest in the SDSN index, ranked 28th in the ISSP ranking.
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