47% adult Pinoys see their quality of life improving in 12 months – SWS

The Hambujan Festival is an annual festivity held at the foot of Mount Banahaw in Dolores, province of Quezon. Hambujan guests are not only for out-of-town visitors. It also attracts international tourists. The fiesta features a colorful street dancing competition and religious rituals honoring the town’s patron saint, Our Lady of Sorrows. (Photo from UNLAD Dolores’ Facebook page)

MANILA, Philippines — A survey by the statistics agency Social Weather Stations (SWS) found that 47 percent of adult Filipinos believe their lives will improve in the next 12 months.

In a survey done from September 14 to 23, 2024, forty seven (47) percent of adults told SWS that their lives will become better (optimists).

Another 40 percent said their lives will stay the same.

On the other hand, five percent said their quality of life will worsen in the next 12 months (pessimists).

Meanwhile, eight percent have yet to respond.

The optimism in the quality of life represents a four percent increase from the results of the June 2024 survey.

SWS also pointed out that the September 2024 net personal optimism (the percentage of optimists subtracted from the percentage of pessimists) score is +42, which the agency classified as “excellent.”

“The September 2024 Net Personal Optimism score was similar to the excellent +41 in June 2024, following a slight increase from very high +37 in March 2024,” SWS said on Thursday.

READ: SWS: 44% of Filipinos see improved quality of life in next 12 months

“The 1-point increase in the national Net Personal Optimism score between June 2024 and September 2024 was due to the slight increases in Metro Manila and the Visayas, combined with a slight decrease in Mindanao and a steady score in Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside of Metro Manila),” SWS added.

The agency noted that the net optimism score remained “excellent” in Metro Manila and Balance Luzon.

At the same time, it increased from “high” to “very high” in Visayas and stayed “very high” in Mindanao.

37 percent of adult Filipinos said their quality of life was better than the past 12 months while 24 percent said that it got worse and 38 percent answered that it remained unchanged.

READ: SWS: 39% of Filipinos say their lives improved over past year

59 percent of Filipino families classified themselves as poor, 13 percent said that they are borderline poor (the line dividing poor and not poor), while 28 percent of them said they are not poor.

“Net Personal Optimism was at excellent levels at +48 among adults who belong to families who consider themselves Not Poor, and +47 among those who belong to families who consider themselves Borderline, compared to the very high +38 among those who belong to the families who consider themselves Poor,” SWS stated.

The survey used face-to-face interviews among 1,500 adult respondents across Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Six hundred participants came from Balance Luzon, 300 from Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao.