March 20th was the United Nations’ annual International Day of Happiness, which stemmed from a 2012 UN Resolution initiated by Bhutan, the famed originator of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) concept. It explains the timing of the release of: (a) the Social Weather Stations (SWS) report, “Fourth Quarter 2025 Social Weather Survey: 33% of Pinoys are ‘very happy’ with life; 23% are ‘very satisfied’ with life” (www.sws.org.ph, 3/19/26), and (b) the 2026 World Happiness Report (WHR), published by the Wellbeing Research Group of the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the WHR’s editorial board.

Happiness of Filipinos according to SWS. The SWS report discloses its two survey questions for monitoring happiness, one with the adjective “happy” (masaya) and another with the adjective “satisfied” (nasisiyahan), and both describing the respondent’s present life as a whole. Each option has a four-point scale: Very Happy/Fairly Happy/Not Very Happy/Not At All Happy and Very Satisfied/Fairly Satisfied/Not Very Satisfied/Not At All Satisfied. SWS has asked the “happy-life” question 49 times since 1991, and the satisfied-life question 57 times since 2002; see the report’s charts and tables.

Personally, I think the happy-life option goes straight to the point; I also like to focus more on downside rather than the upside. In 2025, SWS used both options in two surveys, with these average results (in percentages): 32 Very Happy, 52 Fairly Happy, 14 Not Very Happy, and 2 Not At All Happy; and 29 Very Satisfied, 51 Fairly Satisfied, 14 Not Very Satisfied, and 6 Not At All Satisfied. For me, these may be simplified into 16 percent “unhappy” and 20 percent “dissatisfied.”