Meeting 2014 with hope

In the fourth quarter of each year, Social Weather Stations surveys Filipino adults nationwide with the question, “Ang darating na taon ba ay inyong sasalubungin na may pag-asa o pangamba?” (“Will you meet the coming year with hope or with fear?”)

Hope versus fear. The question is borrowed from Allensbach Institute, the pioneering German polling center founded by Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, whose famous book “The Spiral of Silence” explained why voting-preference surveys done after an election tend to overestimate the winning number of votes.  As each year ends,

Allensbach runs the question and charts the series in a charming Christmas card with contrasting icons for “hope” and “fear.”  It’s the Christmas card that gave us the idea.

Widespread Filipino hope. This week, SWS reported that 94 percent of Filipinos chose “hope,” whereas 6 percent chose “fear,” when interviewed on Dec. 11-16, 2013.  Ninety-four percent is the second-highest New-Year-hope-rate of this 14-year-old series, after twin peaks of 95 percent in 2011 and 2002.

The percentage meeting the New Year with hope is highest in the Balance of Luzon (97), followed by the Visayas (93), Mindanao (92), and the National Capital Region (91).  Hope is very strong for everyone, including Visayans, despite Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”  Education matters a little bit—the percentage is 98 among college graduates, 95 among high school graduates, 93 among elementary graduates, and 92 among elementary school leavers.

Variation over time. The lowest ever proportion of Filipinos meeting a New Year with hope was 81 percent, in 2004.  (The survey was conducted on Nov. 23 through Dec. 2, so the sudden death on Dec. 14, 2004 of presidential candidate and film icon Fernando Poe Jr. was not a factor.)  But the percentage dropped to the 80s only five times—in 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2009—in the past 14 years, and was in the 90s at all other times. Last year’s 92 percent was the lowest so far of the four rounds—successively 93, 95, 92 and 94—in the time of P-Noy.  The 95 of 2011 was the second time the peak was achieved.

In the time of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the percentage ranged between 81 in 2004 and the first 95 in 2002; it was in the 80s four times, and in the 90s five times. There was only one survey of this type in the time of Joseph Estrada, i.e., in 2000, at 87 percent.  The changes over time in the proportion greeting the New Year have been statistically significant.

Thanks to repeated surveying, one can assess how meaningful is the present hope of Filipinos for 2014.  Just as for rainfall and wind-strength, a minimum volume of data is needed to learn what are standard or normal values in social attitudes.  It is something that ordinary meteorology and social meteorology have in common.

Comparing Filipinos and Germans. The comparison between Filipinos and Germans is incidental to the use of the same survey item.  Because of it, we have discovered that greeting a New Year with hope rather than with fear—the alternatives must be stressed; they are part of the question—is much more common among Filipinos.

Whereas Filipinos have a higher average, Germans have a greater variance. During 1990-2012, the percentage of Germans meeting the New Year with hope ranged from as low as 31 to only as high as 58. In the decade of 2003-2012, the percentage of Germans expressing such hope was in the 30s three times, in the 40s five times, and in the 50s twice.  These figures do not imply that

Filipinos fare better than Germans; they simply say that Filipinos and Germans are different.

In either country, there is enough variation in the hope-item to make it useful as an indicator of public morale.  An insensitive indicator would be like a building’s alarm system that fails to ring until a fire, unnoticed, has already become too great for the occupants to cope with using ordinary extinguishers.

Other types of surveys of optimism. The hope-versus-fear for the New Year item is used at the end of a year.  Every quarter, however, SWS asks respondents what they expect in the coming 12 months. (a) Will their personal quality of life get better, get worse, or remain the same?  This is personal optimism. (b) Will the economy as a whole get better, get worse, or remain the same?  This is optimism about the economy.

In the third quarter of 2013, personal optimism was 40 percent, whereas personal pessimism was only 6 percent; the net personal optimism of +35 (correctly rounded) is classified by SWS as “very high” (see “Did Yolanda dampen optimism?” Opinion, 12/21/2013).  On the other hand, optimism about the economy was 33 percent, and pessimism about it was 16 percent; the +17 net optimism on the economy was also “very high” by historical standards.  Surveys worldwide show optimism about the economy as much less than personal optimism; so the two types of optimism deserve different calibrations.

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The fourth quarter survey findings, including the impact of Yolanda, will be part of the 2014 SWS Annual Survey Review, co-sponsored by the AIM Policy Center (APC) and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, to be publicly presented on Tuesday, Jan. 28, at 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Asian Institute of Management. Admission is free; seats may be reserved by phone (02) 892-4011 c/o Ivyrose Baysic, fax (02) 403-9498, or email [email protected].

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Contact: [email protected].