9 in 10 Filipinos welcome 2020 with hope, says survey

MANILA: Nine out of 10, or 96 per cent of the estimated 108 million Filipinos, are to welcome the New Year with hope instead of fear, based on findings by a private polling organisation.

Social Weather Stations (SWS) reported that the 96 per cent represented an overwhelming majority which was four points above the 92 per cent it recorded in 2018 and matched the record high level achieved in 2017.

On the other hand, SWS said that those who are to welcome 2020 with fear dropped four points from eight per cent in 2018 and matched the record-low levels in 2017 and 2011.

SWS said it conducted the fourth quarter nationwide survey from Dec.13 to 16, which involved face to face interviews with 1,200 adult respondents 18 years old and above. Hope was highest in the balance of Luzon at 99 per cent, 97 per cent in the Visayas, 96 per cent in Metro Manila and 90 per cent in Mindanao (down from 94 per cent), according SWS.

It did not explain the four per cent drop in Mindanao but observers pointed out the survey was conducted following a series of powerful magnitude 6.9 earthquakes that rocked wide areas and left behind death and destruction in Southern Philippines in October and November.

The same could also be true, observers pointed out, when typhoon Ursula (international name Phanfone) battered the Visayas and Luzon at Christmas time, with officials saying that about 85,000 of the victims would spend the New Year at evacuation centers.

But hope for the New Year, SWS said, has always been high among Filipinos, starting at 87 per cent when it first asked the question in 2007. It added it rose to 93 per cent in 2010 and has since then been at the level of the 90s, reaching as high as 96 per cent in 2017 and 2019.

In Malacanang Palace, Salvador Panelo, the presidential spokesman, said Filipinos “have so much to look forward to 2020 under the Duterte administration” mainly due to “game-changing reforms” it has undertaken to improve their lives especially the poor.’ Panelo cited findings of the Philippine Statistics Authority indicating a drop in poverty incidence at 16.6 per cent in 2018 from 23.3 per cent in 2015.