47% see better life in next 12 months – SWS

MANILA, Philippines — The number of Filipinos who expect their quality of life to improve in the next 12 months stayed roughly the same in the third quarter of the year, a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll showed.

The Sept. 14 to 23 survey found that 47 percent of respondents expect their lives to improve in a year, almost similar to the 46 percent obtained in a similar survey in June.

Also similar to the previous survey, five percent said it will worsen, while 40 percent said it will stay the same.

The remaining eight percent did not provide an answer, SWS said.

The survey resulted in a “net personal optimism” score of +42, just one point above the +41 in June.

The “net personal optimism” is the rounded-off difference between those who said their lives will worsen and those who said their lives will improve within the year.

Under the present Marcos administration, net optimism score ranged from +37 (March 2024) to +44 (December 2022). It went down to as low as -19 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, although it recovered during the latter part of the Duterte administration.

Across areas, net personal optimism was highest among those in balance Luzon at +48 (from +49), followed by those in Metro Manila at +45 (from +40), Mindanao at +37 (from +39) and Visayas at +31 (from +27).

By educational attainment, it was highest among college graduates at +47 (from +50), followed by high school graduates at +43 (same as in the last survey), elementary graduates at +41 (from +39) and non-elementary graduates at +35 (from +34).

The 2024 first-quarter social weather report had 1,500 adult respondents and a 2.5 percent margin of error.