A Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey has found that 46 percent of Filipinos are optimistic that the Philippine economy will improve in the next 12 months.
In the first quarter 2022 Social Weather report conducted from April 19 to 27 with 1,440 respondents, 28 percent said the Philippine economy will stay the same, while 6 percent said it will worsen.
SWS used the term “optimists” for those who believe the Philippine economy will improve, “pessimists” for those who think it will worsen, and “no change” for those who said it will stay the same.
“The resulting net economic optimism score (percentage of economic optimists minus percentage of economic pessimists) is +40, classified by SWS as “excellent,” it said in a statement on Sunday, July 10.
“The latest net economic optimism score is four points below the excellent +44 in December 2021. It used to be mediocre -9 in July 2020, mediocre -5 in September 2020, and high +24 in November 2020, during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic,” SWS explained.
It pointed out that the four-point decline in the national net economic optimism score from December 2021 to April 2022 is due to slight decreases in all areas except in the Visayas.
As of April 2022, SWS said that net economic optimism is highest in Balance Luzon, or Luzon outside Metro Manila, with +46, followed by Metro Manila (+43), Mindanao (+43), and the Visayas (+18).