Our QOL doesn’t keep still

In the research biz, QOL is short for Quality of Life. Researchers everywhere presume that their people deserve as good a QOL as possible, and, if not yet good enough, a QOL that improves, more or less, toward the ideal.

Monitoring the QOL is a well-established specialty in social science. There is an International Society for Quality of Life Studies (isqols.org), with a journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life. Several of us at Social Weather Stations (SWS) are members of ISQOLS; we have made many presentations at its conferences.

The Filipino people’s progress in QOL has been regularly monitored by SWS surveys since the 1980s. The latest reports are, “Net Gainers improves from -26 in March 2026 to net zero in June 2026” and “Net Personal Optimism improves from +23 in March 2026 to +40 in June 2026” (www.sws.org.ph, 9/2/26 and 9/9/26). The change from the first to the second quarter this year is a statistically significant turnaround.

Each quarter, the SWS survey respondents (adult Filipinos resident in the Philippines) are asked, first of all, whether their QOL—uri ng pamumuhay in Filipino—at present is better than, worse than, or the same as a year ago; this separates them into Gainers, Losers, and those perceiving no change. This question is, in fact, the icebreaker of the entire interview.

The next question to them is whether they expect their QOL a year hence to be better than, worse than, or the same as at present; this separates them into Optimists, Pessimists, and those expecting no change. Net Gainers and Net Optimists are computed by netting out Losers and Pessimists. Note that this procedure counts people as equal persons; it does not deal in any units of money.

There is now a long survey history of movements in QOL over time. The SWS archive, so far, has 165 national surveys about gainers/losers and optimists/pessimists, from 1983 to the present. Every new SWS report updates the historical series, in charts and tables; no need to search for old reports.

This history shows that Gainers exceeded Losers only 34 times; on the other hand, Optimists exceeded Pessimists 152 times. Optimists were dominant 92 percent of the time, even though gainers dominated only 21 percent of the time. In other words, Filipinos persevered, despite much disappointment.

In the three decades of 1983 to 2014, gainers were dominant only twice: in May 1986 (+2) and March 1987 (+11). Net gainers were as low as -47 in July 1985 under Ferdinand Marcos Sr.; -38 in November 1990 under Corazon Aquino; -33 in October 1995 under Fidel Ramos; -44 in October 2000 under Joseph Estrada; -50 in June 2008 under Gloria Arroyo; a mild -14 in June 2014 under Benigno Aquino III; a catastrophic -78 in May 2020 under Rodrigo Duterte; and -26 in March 2026 under Ferdinand Marcos Jr. so far.

Net gainers became positive again only in March 2015 (+6) under Aquino III (high +9). It stayed almost always positive thereafter, through Duterte’s first half until 2019 (high +20); they have been mixed positive (high +15) and negative under Marcos Jr.

The past influences one’s view of the future. Of course, being a gainer makes it easier to be an optimist: in June 2026, the net optimism scores were +50 among gainers and +40 among no-changers, versus only +12 among losers. People who have been more (or less) fortunate in the past year tend to be more (or less) optimistic about what will happen to them in the next year.

It is harder for the poor and the less educated to improve their QOL. In June 2026, the net gainers score of the Self-Rated Poor was -11; on the other hand, it was +9 among the Not Poor and +19 among the Borderline.

Similarly, the net gainers score was -12 among elementary dropouts, -2 among junior high school (JHS) dropouts, and -6 among simple JHS graduates. On the other hand, it was +8 among senior high school graduates and +15 among college graduates.

What will probably happen to Philippine QOL? First of all, we should accept that our QOL is not stagnant. It may have seemed so, 20 to 25 years ago, but not anymore I think. History shows QOL as capable of moving either way, and not gradually. What factors—social, economic, and political; domestic and international—account for this the most? The construction of practical models for forecasting QOL is a worthy challenge for our scientists.

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mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.

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