More than half of Filipinos say they’re worse off this year 

MAJORITY of adult Filipinos said their quality of life worsened this year, according to a poll by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

In a report posted on its website on Tuesday, the SWS said 57% of Filipinos were “losers,” 13% said their life got better, while 29% said nothing changed.

The net gainer score for September was -44 (percent of gainers minus percent of losers), which SWS considers extremely low. It was 13 points worse than the “very low” -31 in June, halting the recovery from the “catastrophic” -76 in Sept. 2020 to “extremely low” -48 in Nov. 2020 and very low -38 in May.

Net gainer scores in all areas were worse than the June results, SWS said.

Metro Manila’s score decreased by 21 points to -51, while the rest of Luzon fell by 14 points to -41. Mindanao’s score decreased by 16 points to -41, while the score dropped by six points to -46 in the Visayas.

Results also showed net gainer scores were worse for all “education groups except college graduates.”

SWS interviewed 1,200 people on Sept. 12 to 16 for the poll, which had an error margin of ±3 points. —

Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza