Thirty-six percent of adult Filipinos expect their quality of life to worsen in the next 12 months, the latest surveys showed.

The Social Weather Stations (SWS) said on Friday, Aug. 21, that this was revealed by the National Mobile Phone Survey conducted from July 3 to 6.

“The 36% Pessimists in July 2020 is the second highest proportion in the 37-year series,” the SWS said.

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

The SWS said the July survey also showed that 30 percent of adult Filipinos expect their quality of life to remain the same in the next 12 months, while 26 percent expect an improvement.

The SWS noted that “the 26% Optimists in July 2020 is similar to the 24% in May 2020.”

“The lowest proportion of Optimists was recorded at 20% in October 2000 and March 2005,” it added.

The July survey was a probability-based survey that was conducted using mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).

There were 1,555 adult Filipinos, ages 18 years old and above, who participated in the survey.

They include 306 in the National Capital Region (NCR); 451 in Balance Luzon or those living outside of Metro Manila); 388 in the Visayas; and 410 in Mindanao.

The SWS noted that the sampling error margins were at ±2 percent for national percentages, ±6 percent for Metro Manila, ±5 percent for Balance Luzon, ±5 percent for the Visayas, and ±5 percent for Mindanao.

It added that the area estimates were weighted by the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2020 to obtain the national estimates.