Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 8) – The latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey found that 86 percent of adult Filipinos experienced stress caused by the COVID-19 crisis.
About 58 percent of the respondents said they experienced ‘great stress’ because of the pandemic. This number rose from the 51 percent in the last SWS survey on the same topic in July.
The Sept. 17-20, 2020 SWS survey results show that around 69 percent of those who experienced ‘great stress’ because of the pandemic belong to families who experienced involuntary hunger in the past three months.
READ: SWS survey reveals new record-high number of Filipino families experiencing hunger
Fifty-eight percent of those in the ‘great stress’ category are jobless at the time of the interview.
They were highest at 64 percent in the Visayas, followed by 58 percent in Balance Luzon (areas in Luzon outside of Metro Manila), 55 percent in Mindanao, and 53 percent in Metro Manila.
Those with ‘much stress’ fell from 35 percent in the July 2020 survey to 27 percent in the September 2020 survey. Around 15 percent felt little’ or ‘no stress at all’ because of the pandemic.
The National Economic and Development Authority reported last Sept. 10 that more Filipinos could slip into poverty and joblessness until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said latest projections showed that the poverty incidence rate will range from 15.5 to17.5 percent next year, coming from 16.7 percent or 17.7 million people in 2018.
According to a World Bank report, the Philippine economy will see a deeper slump this year as the COVID-19 crisis remains uncontained in the country. The international financial institution expected a full-year contraction of 6.9 percent, with the worst-case scenario of a 9.9 percent crash for the Philippines.
The Duterte administration signed in September the ₱165.5-billion Bayanihan to Recover as One Act for the country’s pandemic response and economic recovery.
