Christmas cheer amid woes

President Marcos was right when he said that Filipinos celebrate Christmas “with more fervor than most other countries.” And evidence is all around, from jam-packed malls to festive parties and the daily “carmageddon” on Metro Manila’s roads.

But behind the bright lights and the holiday gaiety is the growing sentiment that Christmas this year will be far less merry, no thanks to a myriad of grave concerns led by the elevated prices of basic goods and services, heightened tensions with China, the severe education crisis, and growing fears about the impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon.

According to the latest “Ulat ng Bayan” survey of Pulse Asia, only 30 percent of its survey respondents felt that they would be “more prosperous” this holiday season, a steep 13-percentage point drop from the 43 percent in the November 2022 survey.

Tellingly, this more pessimistic view was more pronounced among the lower income classes who feel the brunt of the impact of higher prices of products and services that households commonly purchase.

Pulse Asia’s survey showed that only 32 percent of Class D respondents are looking forward to a “more prosperous” holiday season this year, down 12 percentage points and even worse among Class E respondents with only 20 percent projecting a better Christmas 2023, down 19 percentage points.

More negative outlook

The decline in optimism was also felt across the Philippines, with the Visayas posting the biggest decline of 24 percentage points, followed by Mindanao at 15 percentage points and Metro Manila at 14 percentage points.

And for further proof of the more negative outlook this year, 13 percent of those surveyed from Dec. 3 to 7 this year felt they would be poorer than last year, more than double the 6 percent who expressed the same sentiment in the 2022 survey as inflation bites hard.

Indeed, even if inflation has been finally decelerating over the past few months from a sizzling 14-year high of 8.7 percent at the start of the year to a 20-month low of 4.1 percent in November, prices of basic goods have remained elevated.

For example, prices of food items that Filipinos usually put on their dining tables to celebrate Christmas and New Year such as ham and fruit cocktail, pasta, spaghetti sauce, and queso de bola have gone up by a low of 1 percent to a high of 20 percent from last year due to rising labor and production costs, according to the Department of Trade and Industry.

Infinite capacity for hope

Yet on the whole, Pulse Asia said that “for a big plurality of Filipinos”—equivalent to 41 percent—“their holiday celebration this year will be as prosperous as the one they had a year ago” when 42 percent expressed the same feeling.

That most Filipinos manage to keep their spirits up despite their litany of woes this year is testament to their seemingly infinite capacity for hope.

The Pulse Asia survey in fact shows that nine of 10 Filipinos are facing the coming year with optimism. And despite the year’s challenges, there are indeed reasons to look forward to better days, from expectations that inflation will go back to the target range of 2-4 percent to economic growth returning to the path of fast growth.

“Amid the various challenges Filipinos face on a daily basis, most of them continue to remain optimistic, with 92 percent saying they will face the new year with hope,” Pulse Asia said.

This is the prevailing sentiment in every geographic area and socioeconomic grouping (84 percent to 95 percent and 94 percent to 92 percent, respectively), Pulse Asia added. Only 1 percent said they were facing 2024 without hope while 7 percent have fixed feelings.

Tackle the right priorities

Providing added Christmas cheer is the welcome development that the country’s poverty rate dropped—albeit slightly—to 22.4 percent in the first half of this year, from 23.7 percent in 2021, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority, as the Philippines put the COVID-19 pandemic firmly in the rearview mirror. Workers in Metro Manila and Caraga region can also look up to an increase in their salaries in the coming year following a wage order from the regional wage boards.

“The decision to fully open the economy has allowed us to recover from the unprecedented impact of the pandemic and government response,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said.

Balisacan acknowledged that “high inflation in the first semester of 2023 partially offset the positive effect of income growth on poverty,” underscoring the need to address the factors contributing to high prices, such as smuggling.

Still, the Marcos administration can build on the gains in 2023 and further fan those hopes of life getting better in the coming Year of the Dragon by exerting all efforts to tame inflation, which had consistently ranked high among Filipinos’ most urgent concerns, replacing COVID-19 as the pandemic waned.

No time like Christmas, when the world pauses as friends and family gather to celebrate blessings, to reflect on what lies ahead and recharge to gather the energy and focus needed to tackle the right priorities.