THIRTY percent of Filipinos said their quality of life improved since last year, a first Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey under the Marcos administration showed.
An SWS survey conducted from September 29 to October 2, using face-to-face interviews of 1,500 adults nationwide, found that 30 percent of adult Filipinos deem their quality of life better than 12 months before (termed by SWS as “Gainers”); 29 percent said it got worse (“Losers”); and 41 percent said it was the same (“Unchanged”), compared to a year ago.
SWS described those who said their lives got better as “Gainers,” those who said their lives worsened as “Losers,” and the rest as “Unchanged.”
The net gainers score of zero is regarded by SWS as “fair” (-9 to zero).
The SWS said Net Gainer score is slightly up from the fair -2 in June and April 2022.
However, it added that such is still 18 points below the pre-pandemic level of very high +18 in December 2019.
According to the SWS, the survey question on the respondents’ assessment of their change in quality of life in the past 12 months has been fielded 146 times since April 1983.
“The Net Gainer score was generally negative until 2015 when it rose to positive numbers until the drastic deterioration beginning with the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. It has since trended back upwards but still has not reached the positive range,” said the SWS.
The SWS added that the 2-point rise in the national Net Gainer score between June 2022 and October 2022 was due to increases of 4 points in the Visayas and 3 points in Metro Manila and Balance Luzon, combined with a 4-point decrease in Mindanao.
Compared to June 2022, the pollster said the Net Gainers stayed mediocre in the Visayas, although up by 4 points from -17 to -13.
It stayed high in Metro Manila, up by 3 points from +6 to +9.
It also stayed high in Balance Luzon, up by 3 points from +5 to +8.
However, it fell from fair to mediocre in Mindanao, down by 4 points from -7 to -11.
Hunger and poverty
The October 2022 survey also found that 11.3 percent of Filipino families, or an estimated 2.9 million, experienced involuntary hunger—being hungry and not having anything to eat—at least once in the past three months.
The SWS said hunger is significantly higher among Losers than among Gainers and Unchanged: involuntary hunger was 15.7 percent (13.2 percent moderate, 2.5 percent severe) among Losers, compared to 9.8 percent (7.5 percent moderate, 2.3 percent severe) among the Unchanged and 9.0 percent (7.4 percent moderate, 1.6 percentr severe) among Gainers.
Compared to June 2022, it said hunger fell from 10.9 percent among the Unchanged. However, it stayed at 9.0 percent among Gainers and rose from 14.9 percent among Losers.
The SWS survey also found 49 percent of Filipino families rating themselves as Mahirap or Poor, 29 percent rating themselves as Borderline (by placing themselves on a horizontal line dividing Poor and Not Poor), and 21 percent rating themselves as Hindi Mahirap or Not Poor.
The Self-Rated Poor are those who belong to households whose heads rated their family as poor or mahirap. This status is then adopted for all members of the household.
The Net Gainers score has been historically lower among the Poor than among the Borderline Poor and Not Poor. This means the Poor have more Losers and fewer Gainers than the Borderline Poor and Not Poor.
Net Gainers was a fair -9 among the Poor, compared to the high +6 among the Borderline Poor and the very high +14 among the Not Poor.
Compared to June 2022, the SWS said the Net Gainers score rose from mediocre to fair among the Poor, up slightly from -11 to -9. It stayed fair among the Borderline Poor, moving from +8 to +6, while it rose from high to very high among the Not Poor, up from +6 to +14.