Nearly half of Filipinos are optimistic that the quality of their lives will improve in the next 12 months amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey from the Social Weather Stations (SWS) revealed.
The poll, conducted last Juune 26-29 still under the administration of former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte, found that 46% adult Filipinos expect their life to improve. This is a 9% increased from the previous year.
About 40% of Filipinos believes their quality of life will stay the same while only 4%, classified by SWS as pessimist, said it will worsen. The remaining 11% did not give an answer.
The results, according to SWS, yielded a net personal optimism of +42 which they categorized as excellent (+40 and up).
"It was just 2 points below the pre-pandemic level of excellent +44 in December 2019," the poll station said.
Net optimism was highest in Balance Luzon at +50 (excellent), followed by Metro Manila at +43 (excellent), Mindanao at +39 (very high), and the Visayas at +27 (high).
The survey also showed that net optimism was excellent among college and junior high school at +46 each, very high among elementary graduates at +39, and high among those without formal education at +28.
SWS conducted face-to-face interviews among 1,500 adult respondents nationwide: 300 each in Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao, and 600 from Balance Luzon.
"Face-to-face is the standard interviewing method for Social Weather Stations; the only exceptions were early in the pandemic when movement restrictions made face-to-face impossible and mobile phone interviews were conducted," the SWS said.
"Normal face-to-face field operations resumed in November 2020," it added.
The same June SWS survey's sampling error margins are ±2.5% for national percentages, ±5.7% each for Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao, and ±4.0% for Balance Luzon.
"The area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2022 to obtain the national estimates," the SWS said.
