Despite receiving more than its share of disaster, poverty and conflict, the Philippines remains the third happiest country in the world.
According to Gallup International’s 41st annual Happiness, Hope, Economic Optimism poll, the Philippines retained its ranking with a +84 net happiness score.
The poll showed a five-point increase on last year, when it recorded a +79 score.
Taking the top spot as the world’s happiest country was Fiji, with a score of +92, followed by Colombia with +87.
Announcing its findings on its website, Gallup said: “2017 was a tough year with terrorist attacks over almost each week and it may have influenced personal lives all around the world. Nevertheless, a majority in all polled countries are happy.”
The poll also showed that Filipinos were among the world’s most hopeful for 2018. The country placed fifth with a net score of +32 for optimism that the economy would improve this year.
For the poll’s ‘Hope Index’, Filipinos placed ninth with a net optimism score of +40 among the top 10 countries who believe the new year would be better than 2017.
Overall economic optimism and hope, however declined over the last months, Gallup said.
While 28 per cent of the world was optimistic for the economic outlook in 2018, economic pessimism was at 30 per cent, with a net score of -2 for 2017, according to Gallup.
Moreover, only 40 per cent of those surveys felt that 2018 would be better than 2017 — 13 points down compared to last year.
The survey was conducted from October to December with 53,769 people interviewed across the world.
In each country, a representative sample of about 1,000 men and women were interviewed either face to face, via telephone or online.
The margin of error for the survey is between +3-5% at 95% confidence level, the global polling body said.