Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 24) — About 79 percent of Filipinos are expecting to celebrate a “happy” Christmas this year, the highest score in 17 years, a survey said.
The Social Weather Stations (SWS) published a survey on Tuesday, the day before Christmas, saying four out of five of Filipinos or 79 percent expect their Christmas celebrations to be a happy occasion. This is the highest record since 2002 when the survey showed 82 percent expected a happy Christmas. Happy expectations for Christmas was highest in Visayas with 82 percent. Mindanao followed with 80 percent, Balance Luzon with 79 percent and Metro Manila with 70 percent.
Metro Manila has always scored the lowest among the areas for this kind of survey since 2002, except one time in 2012 when Mindanao scored lower, SWS noted.
Meanwhile, two percent expect their Christmas to be “sad” this year, a record-low. This beats the previous lowest score of three percent in 2002. On the other hand, nineteen percent said it will be neither happy nor sad.
Percentages for a negative Christmas outlook have been frequently been in the single digits, except in 2011 when it hit 11 percent and 2009 and 2004 at ten percent.
The survey also revealed that 76 percent of Filipinos said that “it is better to give than to receive” this Christmas. This score is two points higher than its record-low 74 percent last year. The “sense of giving” is highest in Metro Manila at 82 percent, followed by the rest of Luzon with 81 percent, Mindanao with 75 percent and Visayas with 63 percent. Twenty percent in all said it is better to receive than give this Christmas.
SWS conducted the survey from December 13 to 16, through face-to-face interviews with 1,200 adults — 300 each from Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
It has sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages, and ±6% each for Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The survey was non-commissioned.
