4 in 5 Filipinos say life worsened in past 12 months – SWS

by Gabriel Pabico Lalu, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 14 Aug 2020

MANILA, Philippines — Seventy-nine percent or four in five Filipinos have claimed that their lives worsened in the last 12 months, a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released Thursday has shown.

Aside from this, the survey conducted from July 3 to 6 also revealed that only eight percent of the 1,555 respondents said that life became better (gainers), while 12 percent said life stayed the same (unchanged). This translates to a net-gainers score of negative 72 (-72), the polling firm also noted.

According to SWS, the numbers recorded during their surveys in May and July, when several areas are still under lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, were so staggering and unprecedented that it forced them to add new categories in terms of bad net gainers score.

In fact, the research firm has never recorded such low numbers in its 37 years of existence that it was forced to split the bottom score category into two parts — extremely low and catastrophically low.

“The Net Gainers scores in May and July 2020 are unprecedented low figures. They are well beyond any previous fluctuation in the 37-year series. These extraordinary times led SWS to develop two more categories in classifying Net Gainers scores: extremely low (–49 to –40) and catastrophic (–50 below),” SWS said.

“Up to December 2019, very low was at the bottom-most category which refers to score –30 and under. In May 2020, extremely low was added to refer to scores –40 and under,” it added. “In the latest classification, all other categories are retained except for extremely low which was split into the two new categories mentioned above.”

While the net gainers score from all locales and as a whole improved, from -78 in May to the -72 in July, it remained at the catastrophic levels, according to SWS.

Visayas registered the lowest net gainers score at -75, followed by Balance Luzon at –74, Metro Manila at –71, and Mindanao at –65; while the May survey’s net gainers score for the Visayas was at -82, followed by Mindanao (-80), Metro Manila (-77), and Luzon (-75), SWS said.

Ironically, SWS noted that the net-gainers score of people who received cash aid from the government is lower than those who did not, from -74 to -64, which may indicate that the government’s subsidy program was not enough to make people’s lives a little easier in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Net Gainers score is lower among those who received money-help from the government (–74) than among those who did not (–66). This means that more among the Losers received government-money help than among the Gainers,” SWS noted.

Previously, the national government said they are not disputing the SWS survey results in May, where 83 percent of Filipinos also said that their life worsened. Instead, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said he is surprised that the number is not at 100 percent since they believe most were economically-affected by the health crisis.

The results of its latest survey, SWS said, were obtained through mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing of respondents spread across the National Capital Region (306), Luzon (451), Visayas (388), and Mindanao (410).

SWS also said it maintains sampling error margins of ±2% for national percentages, ±6% for Metro Manila, ±5 for Balance Luzon, ±5% for the Visayas, and ±5% for Mindanao.