By Katrina Gracia Consebido
A Social Weather Stations (SWS) fourth quarter survey released on Wednesday, Jan. 25, found that 34% of adult Filipinos said there was an improvement in the quality of their lives from the previous year.
Around 26% said their lives have gotten worse and 39% believed that nothing has changed.
The survey was conducted nationwide from December 10-14 last year, covering 1,200 respondents.
The December 2022 net gainer score improved from the “fair levels” of net zero in October 2022 and -2 in June and April 2022. However, it is still 10 points below the pre-pandemic level of a very high +18 in December 2019.
The eight-point increase in the national score between October and December 2022 came from the gains in all regions, particularly those in Mindanao.
Compared to October 2022, net gainers in Metro Manila rose from high to very high by nine points, from +9 to +18. It also rose by two points from +8 to +10 in Luzon.
It also improved from mediocre to fair in Visayas as it scored nine points up from -13 to -4, and increased sharply from mediocre to very high in Mindanao by 21 points from -11 to +10.
Meanwhile, 11.8% of Filipino families or an estimated three million individuals experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the preceding three months.
According to its December 2022 survey, 51% of Filipino families rated themselves as poor, while 31% rated themselves in the borderline, and 19% rated themselves as not poor.
Self-Rated Poor are those from poor households. The household adopts this status.
“The net gainers score has been historically lower among the poor than among the borderline poor or not poor,” SWS stated.
“This means the poor have more losers and fewer gainers than the borderline poor or not poor,” it added. –ag
