Palace on SWS's 'quality of life' poll: Recovery plan in place to cushion pandemic's impact

Malacañang on Saturday expressed concern over the result of the latest SWS survey showing 36% of working age Filipinos expecting their lives to worsen in the next 12 months, but said the government has already laid down a recovery plan.

“The Palace acknowledges that the COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine restrictions have adversely affected the socioeconomic conditions of our people for the respondents of the survey to have this opinion,” Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said, adding that the issue "certainly... concerns the administration."

“It is for this reason government economists have prepared a whole-of-society program in our recovery plan called Recharge PH to mitigate its impact,” Roque said.

The Palace official said that “Ingat buhay para sa hanapbuhay” is the current direction of the government as it moves to gradually reopen industries.

Roque also cited resumption of our Build, Build, Build program, including the build up of the country’s health system capacity and preparing for new normal through digital transformation.

“[W]e hope to revitalize the economy and stimulate growth for the betterment of the lives of our people,” he said.

The survey, conducted on July 3 to 6, said the 36% of those who expect their lives to worsen next year is the “second highest proportion in the 37-year series.”

“Pessimists peaked at 43% in May 2020, breaking the previous record 34% in March 2005,” the SWS said.

Meanwhile, 30% are expecting their quality of life to stay the same, and 26% expecting it to improve, or “optimists,” in the next 12 months.

The resulting net optimism score of -10 or percentage of “optimist” minus percentage of “pessimists” is classified by SWS as “very low.”

This is a slight improvement from the record-low -18 in May 2020, according to SWS.

The SWS National Mobile Phone Survey was a probability-based survey conducted using mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing of 1,555 adult Filipinos (18 years old and above) nationwide: 306 in the National Capital Region, 451 in Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside of Metro Manila), 388 in the Visayas, and 410 in Mindanao.

The area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2020 to obtain the national estimates. -MDM, GMA News