(Eagle News) – Majority of Filipinos are still “optimistic” about the coming year, with optimism ranking higher among those aged 18 to 49, according to the PAHAYAG End-Of-the-Year survey done by Publicus Asia, Inc., a relational business and political management firm based in the Philippines.
In its poll done from Dec. 3 to 9, 2020 through nationwide purposive sampling comprising of 1,500 respondents, about 75 percent or three-fourths of those surveyed said that they felt that 2021 will be better than the year 2020.
“So if we look into optimism about the economy, employment and working arrangements, we find that roughly three fourths of the sample can be viewed as optimistic about their financial prospects, personal financial prospects as we head into 2021,” said Dr. David Yap, chief data scientist of Publicus Asia.
Yap, in an exclusive interview by ASEAN in Focus host Alma Angeles, said that only five percent of the respondents felt that their financial prospects will worsen in 2021.
“It isn’t exactly that they may think that their their financial situation will improve drastically compared to say 2019 into 2020, but rather … a lot of people may have gotten into a situation that is markedly worse than what they are used to. And they think that 2021 cannot be worse than 2020,” he explained.
In its survey done only on registered voters, 44.8 percent of the respondents felt that their households’ financial prospects would “improve a little” by 2021, while 32.3 percent felt that it will improve a lot next year.
“So aggregate of optimism appears to be higher among those aged 18 to 49 than among those aged 50 and above,” Yap said citing the PAHAYAG survey results.
“Optimism among the younger group hovers around the 75 percent mark, whereas optimism in the older group hovers around the 60 percent mark,” he said.
-Optimism for PHL economy –
Over 40 percent of the respondents, or 42.2 percent felt the country’s economic prospects would “improve by a little” next year, while only 28.9 percent said that it would improve a lot.
Generally, around 70 percent felt the country’s economy will improve by next year, the survey said.
“The majority of respondents (~70) also appear to be optimistic about the nation’s economic prospects for 2021 with optimism rising with income level. Optimism is markedly higher in NCR at almost 80%, indicating that they expect improvements in the Philippine economy in 2021,” PAHAYAG survey results as explained by Publicus Asia in its site said.
The poll also touched on other topics including how they rated government agencies’ pandemic response and prospects for the election year.
The PAHAYAG end-of-the-year survey questioned 1500 respondents who were drawn from a research panel of approximately 100,000 Filipinos maintained by a Singapore-based firm.
“The survey research panel was restricted to registered voters. Parameters based on respondent age and location were also considered in the sample formulation in order for the resulting sample to conform more closely to the features of the voting population as defined by statistics from the COMELEC (Commission on Elections),” a description of the survey in the Publicus Asia website said.
It said the reading was divided by super regions: NCR, Northern and Central Luzon (NCL), Southern Luzon (SL), Visayas (VIS), and Mindanao (MIN).
(Eagle News Service)
