9 of 10 Pinoys welcome 2009 with hope - survey

MANILA, Philippines - Nine out of ten Filipinos are welcoming 2009 with hope, a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed. For the third straight year, more than 91 percent of Filipinos look forward to the new year with hope and only eight percent enter another year with fear. The survey was conducted from November 28 to December 1, 2008. "New Year hopes are high across socio-economic classes - 92% among the middle to upper classes ABC, 92% among the masa D class, and 90% among the very poor class E," SWS said in its statement. "Hopefulness for the New Year slightly increased among classes ABC, from 88% in 2007 to 92% in 2008," it added. Hopes for the New Year are lowest in Metro Manila at 89 percent and highest in Visayas at 94 percent. Hopefulness in the rest of Luzon and in Mindanao stands at 92 percent. Of the 63 percent of Filipinos expecting a happy Christmas, 95 percent are welcoming the new year with hope. As much as 76 percent of those who looked forward to a sad Christmas are welcoming 2009 with hope. The SWS "hope for the new year" survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 1,500 adults nationwide with a sampling error margin of ±2.5% for national percentages; ± six percent for Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao; and ± four percent for the rest of Luzon. The survey is based on the polls conducted by the Allensbach Institute of Demoskopy in Germany, where hope for the new year has not exceeded 58 percent since 1991. - Barbara Lorenzo and Amita Legaspi, GMANews.TV