One year under quarantine has made Filipinos less happy, according to a new study. Still, they found ways to humor themselves through uncertainty as "NCR Plus" and #LandiinNiyoNaAko trended after millions were placed in a bubble with tighter restrictions.
NCR Plus refers to Metro Manila, Bulacan, Laguna, Rizal and Cavite. Sounds like a new iPhone name? NCR Pro Max also trended. These jokes are charged with frustrations more than joy.
According to the 2021 World Happines Report, the Philippines ranked 61st among 149 countries with a score of 5.88, dropping nine places from its previous year ranking of 52nd out of 153 countries.
Finland topped the ratings for the fourth year in a row. It is followed by fellow European countries Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, and the Netherlands. At the bottom of the rankings is war-stricken Afghanistan, followed by Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Botswana, and Lesotho.
The annual report's computed score is based on the average rate of the past three years (from 2018 to 2020). This year, however, the index paid special attention to the year 2020 to underscore the pandemic's unprecedented impact on people's well-being.
In this isolated assessment, the Philippines ranked 74th out of 95 countries surveyed in 2020, with a score of 5.080. It's a 32-rank drop from the 42nd place it landed on average from years 2017 to 2019.
The report comes days after the Philippines was found to have reached its all-time high record in deaths due to intentional self-harm, further highlighting the pandemic's toll on Filipinos.
The World Happiness Index relies on three main indicators: life evaluations, positive emotions, and negative emotions. Other measures like gross domestic product (GDP), social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity of people, and perceptions of corruption were also accounted for to compute each country's happiness score.
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'Remarkable resilience'
Despite the decline, globally, the report noted that "there has been surprising resilience in how people rate their lives overall", in the face of COVID-19.
It found that "COVID-19 has led to only modest changes in the overall rankings, reflecting both the global nature of the pandemic and a widely shared resilience in the face of it."
According to the report, the pandemic’s toll on negative emotions is clear, as 42 countries significantly showed higher frequency of negative emotions, compared to 9 where they were significantly less frequent.
Positive emotions lie in the middle ground, with 22 countries on the upside and 25 heading down, relative to the average values in 2017-2019, it said.
"Given how all lives have been so importantly disrupted, it is remarkable that the averages are so stable," it concluded.
Of all six factors supporting happiness, namely income, health, someone to count on, freedom, generosity, and trust, the report found that trust was the key factor linking happiness and COVID-19.
"It was shown to be as important as ever in supporting happiness during the pandemic, and was found to be even more important when COVID-19 required the whole structure of private and public lives to be refocused on fighting the pandemic," the report said.
"Societies with higher trust in public institutions and greater income equality were shown to be more successful in fighting COVID-19," it added.
The Philippines is currently battling its second wave of COVID-19 infections, reporting over 7,000 cases a day since March 19.
Roughly a year since it imposed its strictest form of lockdown, it is once again implementing tighter restrictions in major hotspots to curb the surge.
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