Despite the crippling coronavirus pandemic and a string of tropical cyclones that hit the country, Filipinos are still optimistic about their prospects in 2021, said a recent survey by pollster Pulse Asia.

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A total of 91% of Filipino adults said they will be facing the new year “with hope,” according to the November 2020 Ulat ng Bayan survey results released on Wednesday, December 23. 

Pulse Asia said this is a general sentiment shared by populations in each geographic area and socioeconomic grouping.

Only 1% of those surveyed saying they are “without hope” for the upcoming year, while 8% said they are ambivalent on the matter.

Pulse Asia said these figures are “essentially the same” as what it recorded in December 2019, when 93% of Filipinos said they will face 2020 with hope. At the time, the first cases of COVID-19 had just been recorded in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the pandemic, but had not been widely reported in international media.

Meanwhile, the same survey showed that a small majority of Filipino adults or 55% of respondents said there will be no difference in their families’ Christmas celebration this year compared to last year.

But 38% of Filipino adults believe the holidays this year will be less prosperous than last year, while only 8% said they are looking forward to a more prosperous Christmas in 2020. 

More Filipinos ‘poorer’ this Christmas

Pulse Asia cited a “notable drop” of 40% in the number of Filipinos who expect a more prosperous Christmas this year compared to 2019.

In December 2019, almost half or 48% of Filipino adults surveyed said they expected a more prosperous holidays that year, but this number fell to just 8% in December 2020. 

There was also a 27% increase in the number of Filipino adults who expect their families to be poorer during Christmas this year than in 2019. From just 11% in December 2019, the number of survey respondents who said their families will be having a poorer holiday celebration this year rose to 38%.

Pulse Asia conducted face-to-face interviews with 2,400 adults aged 18 and above from November 23 to December 2 for its survey fieldwork. The survey had a ±2% margin of error for national results.

The survey period happened just as Filipinos endured the onslaught of back-to-back tropical cyclones Rolly (Goni) and Ulysses (Vamco). Residents of the Cagayan Valley were also forced to climb to their roofs due to massive flooding in the wake of the successive typhoons.

President Rodrigo Duterte was forced to put the entire Luzon island under a state of calamity. 

Filipinos were also preoccupied with news of manufacturers announcing that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines are 90% and 94.5% effective, respectively. Duterte would later appoint retired military general Carlito Galvez Jr as vaccine czar, an addition to his sweeping tasks as chief implementer of the country’s national action plan against COVID-19.

Other hot issues in the country that happened during the survey period include senators cautioned against letting the Philippine International Trading Corporation oversee the government’s COVID-19 purchases, the President warning that many corrupt officials would lose their jobs in 2020, the Department of Public Works and Highways’ disclosure that it has blacklisted 25 “non-performing or scheming” contractors since 2016, and the controversial appointment of Major General Debold Sinas as chief of the police force. 

All these occurred while the General Community Quarantine continues to be implemented in Metro Manila, Batangas, Lanao del Sur, and Davao del Norte due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases. 

Outside of the Philippines, Americans trooped to the polling precincts to vote for their next president when Pulse Asia conducted the survey. It was only in November 7 when the United States’ major media networks called the election in favor of former vice president and Democratic bet Joe Biden and his running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris. – Rappler.com