Hopeful Filipinos

If you’re filled with hope as we enter a new year, you’re not alone.

You’re one of the 96 percent of Filipinos – if we now have a total population of 140 million, that would mean more than 134.4 million of us – who have welcomed 2024 with optimism.

That’s the finding of the recent survey by Social Weather Stations. The 96 percent figure is a record-high, the SWS said, as it is one point higher than last year’s 95 percent.

Since the polling firm started asking the question in 2000, it said, the record-high 96 percent was only obtained twice before, in 2017 and 2019. The record-low was in December 2004, when only 81 percent said they would welcome the coming year with hope.

Since 2010, the percentage of Filipinos welcoming the new year with hope has stayed above 90 percent, with the lowest in November 2020 at 91 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest survey, from Dec. 8 to 11, also found that only three percent would enter 2024 with fear, the lowest since SWS started conducting surveys in 2000.

Across areas, those who said they would greet the new year with hope was highest among respondents in Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon at 97 percent (from 93 percent and 97 percent, respectively), followed by those in Mindanao at 96 percent (from 93 percent) and the Visayas at 93 percent (from 95 percent).

What’s likely to give Filipinos hope when a new year arrives?

On a personal level, it could mean landing a lucrative job, or getting a salary raise, perhaps a reward or commendation for a job well done in the past year.

At the economic/political/social levels, it could be sustained economic growth that assures people of prosperous lives, prevalence of law and order that allows people to go about their daily lives without fear of falling victim to crime, social conditions that facilitate interaction and deepened friendship with other people.

And what would make Filipinos lose hope with the onset of a new year?

Again, on a personal level, it could be the loss of one’s job or livelihood, the loss of a loved one, serious illness in the family.

At the economic/political/social levels, it could be poverty and accompanying hunger, inability to cope with high prices of goods and services for daily living, rampant criminality, unstable political situation, social inequality.

It is the task of government to establish the conditions for Filipinos to look forward to every new year – and the future – with hope.

We don’t have to look far and wide to see just how that may be done.

It’s in our fundamental law: The State shall “promote a just and dynamic social order that will ensure the prosperity and independence of the nation and free the people from poverty through policies that provide adequate social services, promote full employment, a rising standard of living, and an improved quality of life for all.”

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