Poll: 93% of Pinoys facing 2011 with hope

MANILA, Philippines – More Filipinos are greeting the coming year with hope rather than fear.

A Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, conducted from Nov. 27 to 30, showed 93 percent of 1,200 respondents saying they were entering 2011 with hope, an improvement from last year’s 89 percent.

The new score was just two points shy of the 95 percent peak eight years ago, according to results of the SWS poll published in the newspaper BusinessWorld yesterday.

“We thank the Filipino people for their trust in us. They view our government as an engine of hope, that what we promised during the campaign, the eradication of graft and corruption and poverty reduction will bear fruit,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said of the survey results.

“That’s something that we are going to affirm and again we’re very elated with the survey results, that nine of 10 Filipinos view 2011 with hope,” he said.

“We need to address the concerns of the poor and poverty reduction is only one of them,” Lacierda said.

“The budget that we had envisioned and which had been approved is something which we had in mind and we intend to implement all the programs and policies of President Aquino,” he added.

Those who view the coming year with fear comprised only seven percent, down from last year’s 11 percent, the SWS said.

The survey showed optimism over the coming year is high across all geographical areas and shared by all socioeconomic classes – at 96 percent from 87 percent in Metro Manila, 94 percent from 90 percent in the rest of Luzon, 97 percent from 88 percent in the Visayas, and 89 percent from 87 percent in Mindanao.

By socioeconomic classes, those expressing hope for the new year went up to 97 percent from 91 percent among the class ABC, 95 percent from 89 percent among the class D or the so-called masa crowd, and 89 percent from 87 percent among the class E.

Of the 69 percent looking forward to a cheerful Christmas, 96 percent were hopeful about the coming year.

Even among the seven percent who expected a sad Christmas, a majority or 77 percent were looking forward to 2011 with hope, the pollster said.

According to the SWS, Filipinos’ optimism with the coming year has traditionally been high, starting at 87 percent in 2000 when such surveys began.

It said the lowest point of 81 percent was recorded in 2004. The figure improved to 85 percent the following year, stayed at 91 percent to 92 percent in the next three years and then fell to 89 percent last year.

The SWS said the New Year’s hope question was said to have originated in Germany.

It said Filipinos’ optimism is substantially higher than the Germans’ 31 percent to 58 percent from 1991 to 2009.

It said German hope has topped 50 percent only five times since 1991. –Helen Flores (The Philippine Star) with Delon Porcalla, Aurea Calica