Bad and good developments
There have been both bad and good developments for the people’s well-being in recent weeks, so let’s start with the negative side.
Very bad for Filipinos: The war in Iran. Social Weather Stations (SWS) issued its first national report for the year last Thursday: “First Quarter 2026 Social Weather Survey: 50% of adult Filipinos got worse off in the past 12 months,” www.sws.org.ph, 4/22/26. One-half of those surveyed said their Quality of Life (QOL, uri ng pamumuhay in Filipino) worsened, about one-fourth (26 percent) said it remained the same, and the rest (23 percent) said it improved, when interviewed on March 24 to 31, 2026, by which time the United States war in Iran, which US President Donald J. Trump claims is not a war, was in full swing.
The resulting Net Gainers score of -26 (correctly rounded) for 2026Q1 is far below the average 2025 net score of -8, coming from 29 percent gainers and 36 percent losers last year, which we classify as “fair,” since the negative was merely single-digit. The 18-point drop in the net score is a measure of the war’s effect on the Filipino people’s QOL-trend as of late March.
A surplus of losers is very common: only 21 percent of the 164 surveys of this QOL indicator, from 1983 to the present, yielded a surplus of gainers. On the other hand, 18 percent resulted in a single-digit negative, while 61 percent found double-digit negatives, like the current -26, which we term “low” (from -20 to -29). The numbers for the entire four-decade history of gainers and losers are given and charted in the SWS release.
The new net score of -26 is a great shock, the likes of which we have not seen since the pandemic years of 2020 (average -69) and 2021 (average -32). Yet after the pandemic, the annual averages recovered strongly to +1 in 2022, +5 in 2023, -8 in 2024 and -8 again in 2025. We call single-digit positive scores “high” since they are few, making up only 10 percent of the historical cases. We call double-digit scores of +10 to +19 “very high,” and scores of +20 or more “excellent,” since they are even rarer.
The shocking scores are nationwide: -31 in the National Capital Region, -23 in Balance Luzon, -25 in Visayas, and -31 in Mindanao. They are worse for the lower classes: -19 among college graduates, -22 among junior high school grads and up, -31 among elementary grads up to some high school, and -39 among elementary dropouts. Schooling is a very reliable proxy for social class.
Recovery of our QOL-trend to normal times will require, of course, the end of the war. But the scale of international trade will not normalize until the facilities destroyed and the volume of shipping are restored.
The good news is that the world is rallying against Trump. In Hungary, Trump’s favorite autocrat Viktor Orban quickly conceded losing his 16-year-old presidency in the April 12 presidential election. In the US: (1) the net support for the Iran war is at -15, (2) the generic congressional ballot is at +5.8 for the Democratic Party for the election next November, and (3) Trump’s net approval rating is at a new low of -19. All US numbers are from polls as aggregated on natesilver.net as of April 23.
Favorable developments at home. There are also two recent developments that I consider as good news for the Filipino people. One is the ruling of the International Criminal Court affirming its jurisdiction over all the charges against ex-President Rodrigo Duterte of murder and other serious crimes against humanity, followed by its confirmation that his trial will proceed.
The other is the steady progress of the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte for grave threats and corruption. It is clear from repeated SWS polls over the past few years that Filipinos: (1) have been quite unhappy about the extrajudicial killings during the drug war under the Rodrigo Duterte administration, and (2) want VP Sara to face squarely the many corruption complaints against her.
Both Dutertes have been trying to defend themselves by simply being absent from their respective formal hearings. This dubious defense weakens the trust of the Filipino people in them, and raises their likelihood of being found guilty of the charges.
By the time the elder Duterte leaves confinement at The Hague, if ever, he may be over 90 years old already. My guess on why the younger Duterte declared candidacy for the 2028 election so early is that she is nervous about her chance of success. The wheels of justice in the Philippines may move very slowly, but they do move.
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mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.
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