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| Reference Material |
| 52% of respondents say life worse today By Agence France Presse May 8, 2002, Philippine Daily Inquirer FILIPINOS are largely pessimistic over their short-term economic prospects, with more than half rating themselves poor, according to an independent survey released yesterday. Fifty two percent said their quality of life deteriorated over the past 12 months while 15% said it turned for the better, according to the Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll of 1,200 adult respondents on March 4-23. In a similar poll a year ago, 43% of the respondents said they were worse off and 17% said their circumstances had improved. There was also a marked turn for the worse when the respondents were asked to rate their prospects for the next 12 months. Twenty-six percent were optimistic and 21% were pessimistic, compared with 31% optimistic and 16% pessimistic a year ago. Fifty-eight percent considered themselves poor, virtually unchanged from 59% a year ago. But hunger went up for two consecutive quarters. Eleven percent of the respondents said they experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the previous three months. The figure was 10.4% in November 2001 and 9.3% in September 2001. Government figures show 39.4% of the population of about 80 million live on less than P50 a day, a marked increase from the 32-percent level before the mid-1997 Asian (financial) crisis. There was also a marked pessimism on overall economic prospects for the Philippines, with 38% believing it would worsen over the short term and 17% thinking it would improve, the SWS poll found. Last year 28% were optimistic and 25% were pessimistic���.. ***** |