Filipinos less happy in 2010

The level of happiness among poor Filipinos fell “dramatically” over the last three years, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

In its Statistically Speaking, NSCB Secretary General Romulo Virola on Tuesday said that the level of happiness did not change much between 2007 and 2008, but dramatically went down in 2010.

He added that the level of the perception-based (using a single question) happiness went down to 47.40 percent from 70.89 percent in 2008 and 69.44 percent in 2007.

Virola said that among the low-income group this year, women are happiest with their family, love life and food, while men are happiest with their sex life, love life and food.

“The men are not very happy with their family, however, a great mismatch with the women and a cause for concern,” he noted.
Other important sources of happiness for women are work, food, and peace and security.

But while peace and security and work are also important to men, food is only ninth most important to men compared to fifth among women.

“This might mean one of the following: that husbands have to take their wives to dinner every now and then; or that unless they can be more convincing in describing their dinner as “ang sarap, [that’s delicious] darling!,” they should learn to cook the dinner themselves. Of course it is understood that husbands should never dare compare the wife’s adobo sa embutido ni nanay [of mother]!,” Virola said.

Adobo and embutido are meat dishes and seen as all-time favorites among Filipinos.
The NSCB chief said that the biggest disparity in the rankings is on sex life.

Virola added that men find it 10th most important with a rating of 8.2 but women find it 18th most important with a rating of 6.8 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Women find love life only 10th most important with a rating of 8.2, but men find it 6th most important with a rating of 8.7.

“This is easy to trivialize, but the unmet expectations for love and sex by either partner can surely lead to problems, and must be managed properly and professionally. In fact, this is probably one explanation for the finding that 8 percent of sexual violence against ever-married women were perpetrated by the husband,” Virola said.

He added that the most important for men and women is family followed by health, religion, work, peace and security and food.

The NSCB chief said that importance of friends as a source of happiness has gone down from No. 4 in 2007 to No. 12 this year. –Darwin G. Amojelar, Senior Reporter, Manila Times