SWS: 96% of Filipinos eyeing New Year 2024 with hope

Ninety-six percent of Filipinos are looking at 2024 with hope instead of fear, the latest Social Weather Stations survey has found.

According to the survey conducted from December 8 to 11, this is a point above the 95% in 2022 and the highest since the 96% registered before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.

Three percent of the respondents said they would enter the New Year with fear, down by two points from five percent in 2022.

SWS said hope for the New Year was 87% when first surveyed by SWS at the end of 2000.

It was in the 80s at the end of 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2009. It was in the 90s at the end of 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, and from 2010 to 2023.

The Fourth Quarter 2023 Social Weather Survey was conducted from December 8 to 11, 2023, using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults (18 years old and above) nationwide: 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside Metro Manila), the Visayas, and Mindanao.

Face-to-face is the standard interviewing method for Social Weather Stations; the only exceptions were early in the pandemic when movement restrictions made face-to-face impossible and mobile phone interviews were conducted.

Normal face-to-face field operations resumed in November 2020. The sampling error margins are ±2.8% for national percentages, and ±5.7% each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. —NB, GMA Integrated