Nearly Half of Filipinos Optimistic Economy Will Improve: SWS
Nearly half of Filipinos are optimistic that the economy will improve, results of a Social Weather Survey released Sunday showed, as household budgets struggle to cope with soaring prices of fuel and commodities.
Some 46% of Filipino adults are positive that the Philippine economy will improve in the next 12 months while 6% think it will worsen, results of the April 19-27 survey showed. Another 28% meanwhile said they think the economy will stay the same.
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The result is equivalent to a net economic optimism score of +40 which SWS said it classified as "excellent."
The same survey also found that optimism that the economy will improve was higher among those who belong to families who consider themselves as "not poor" compared to those who belong to families who consider themselves as "borderline poor" and "poor."
Net economic optimism among adults who belong to self-rated "not poor" families was at +54, higher than the +39 among those who belong to families who consider themselves "borderline poor", and the +32 self-rated "poor" families.
SWS said higher net economic optimism was observed too among individuals who said their quality of life got better from a year ago (gainers) compared to those who said it got worse (losers) or remained the same (unchanged).
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Net economic optimism is higher among gainers (+51) than among the unchanged (+33) and losers (+37).
The survey, conducted before President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. won the presidential election and assumed office, was conducted using face-to-face interviews of 1,440 adults nationwide and has a ±2.6% sampling error margin for national percentages and ±5.2% for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
Finance Sec. Benjamin Diokno had said that the government aims to bring down the country's poverty rate to 9% by the end of Marcos Jr.'s term.
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