Despite the continuing threat of COVID-19 pandemic, 91 percent of Filipinos are still hopeful about their future in 2021, a recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) shows.
The survey conducted from Nov. 21 to 25, showed that 7 percent will enter the New Year with fear, three percentage points up from 4 percent in 2019.
Hope for the New Year started at 87 percent when SWS first asked the question at the end of 2000. It was in the 90s at the end of 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010 to 2020. It was in the 80s at the end of 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2009.
The SWS said 83 percent of those expecting a sad Christmas are entering the New Year with hope. The November 2020 survey found that 50 percent of adult Filipinos expected this Christmas to be happy, 15 percent expected it to be sad , and 33 percent expected it to be neither happy nor sad.
New Year hope among those who expected a happy Christmas hardly changed from 97 percent in 2019 to 96 percent in 2020.It fell by six points among those who expected a neither happy nor sad Christmas, from 94 percent in 2019 to 88 percent in 2020. It rose by four points among those who expected a sad Christmas, from 79 percent in 2019 to 83 percent in 2020.
New Year hope among those from not poor and borderline poor families was 94 percent and 93 percent, respectively, compared to 89 percent among those from poor families.
Compared to the end of 2019, New Year hope rose by three points in Mindanao, from 90 percent to 93 percent. However, it fell in Balance Luzon (from 99 percent to 92 percent), in Metro Manila (from 96 percent to 90 percent), and in the Visayas (from 97 percent to 88 percent).
The survey was conducted from Nov. 21-25, 2020, using face-to-face interviews of 1,500 adults nationwide: 600 in Balance Luzon and 300 each in Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao.
The sampling error margins are ±2.5 percent for national percentages, ±4 percent for Balance Luzon, and ±6 percent for Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.