Filipinos remain among world's most emtional

By Jeremaiah Opiniano (philstar.com) 

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In this Nov. 23, 2016 file photo shows Philippine National Police chief Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa turned emotional during the Senate probe into the killing of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa. The STAR/Mong Pintolo, File photo

LIPA CITY, Philippines (The Filipino Connection) — Maricar Garcia got a small strip of paper near the police station here and thought it was a scented sheet. The two sentences on that strip gave a different "scent": positivity.

 

"PRAY until your SITUATION CHANGES. MIRACLES happen EVERYDAY," reads the strip.

 

I am just amazed, Garcia said in Filipino on her post to this city's biggest Facebook group "Lipa City Philippines." "It (the message) gives good vibes especially in this humid weather while I was walking," Garcia said.

 

This simple showcasing of positivity, at least through the Filipino social media universe, continues to make the Philippines among the world's most emotional societies.

 

The Philippines tied for third among 142 countries with the highest positive experiences, says an annual survey of people's emotions by the polling firm Gallup. This is while the Philippines, in Gallup's annual Global Emotions Report, remained as Asia's most emotional country for the third year in a row.

 

The 2017 GER's Positive Experiences Index showed that the Philippines' index score was at 82 percent, tied with Panama. Paraguay was the highest at 84 percent, followed by Costa Rica with 83 percent.

 

 

For this specific Index in the said Global Emotions Report, the Philippines is the highest among Asian countries.

 

The Philippines' 2017 mean score in the Positive Experiences Index was higher than the global mean of 70 percent.

 

Meanwhile, in the major finding for "Total Emotions," the Philippines was third with 58 percent. Ecuador topped here with 60 percent while El Salvador and Liberia each posted 59 percent.

 

 

The "Total Emotions" item of the Gallup Global Emotions survey featured ten questions that make up the survey's positive and negative experiences indices. This indicates which countries are the most and least emotional.

 

The Gallup's Global Emotions Report contains five questions each for positive and negative indices that help measure "life's intangibles" — pertaining to feelings and emotions — that traditional economic indicators such as gross domestic product cannot or never even intended to capture. 

 

Either the positive or negative experiences index, Gallup adds, "provides a real-time snapshot of people's daily experiences" so as to give indications on the health of societies that economic measures alone cannot capture. 

 

About 149,000 individuals from 142 countries were surveyed in this 2017 Global Emotions Report. 

 

The ten questions were part of the annual Gallup World Poll that annually tracks some of the most important issues like food access, employment, leaders' performances and well being. This Gallup World Poll includes more than a hundred global questions as well as region-specific questions, Gallup explains.

 

Gallup asks the same questions "every time, in the same way" that allows analysts to trend data annually, or even make direct country comparisons.

 

On the 149,000 people surveyed worldwide for the 2017 World Poll, and for results based on the total sample of national adults, the Gallup World Poll's margin of sampling error ranged from ±2.1 percentage points to ±5.3 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

 

The Global Emotions Report's positive experiences set of questions asked questions such as:

 

• Did you feel well-rested yesterday? 

• Were you treated with respect all day yesterday? 

• Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday? 

• Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday? 

• Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday? How about enjoyment?

 

The scores for the Positive and Negative Experiences Indices are the mean (or average) scores of "all valid affirmative responses" — multiplied by 100 — for the five questions in each index, Gallup explains. 

 

The Philippines, in the 2016 edition of the Global Emotions Report, was among four countries — together with Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala — with the highest emotions worldwide. 

 

In the 2015 edition, the Philippines tied with Ecuador for second (58 percent) behind Bolivia and El Salvador (59 percent each) in terms of the most emotions.

 

But it was only in the 2017 edition of the Global Emotions Report that the Philippines broke into the top ten of the Positive Experiences Index.

 

In releasing the 2017 Global Emotions Report, the polling firm notes what it claims to be an important observation in the field of  behavioral economics: only 30 percent of an individual's behavior is "rational — (and) the other 70 percent is emotional," Gallup said.

 

"While organizations are starting to apply this (said) concept at a microlevel, governments have been slow to do it at a macro-level," Gallup wrote.

 

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Jeremaiah Opiniano is the publisher of The Filipino Connection

Jacob Benedicto Finds Career an 'Emotional Roller-Coaster"

By Amadis Ma. Guerrero (The Philippine Star)

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Jacob Benedicto learned discipline in theater and coping with irregular hours from his TV work

MANILA, Philippines - The moment he appeared on stage, the screaming among his fans, mostly girl students, began. It was hard to follow the dialogue, although the plot was familiar.

The venue was SM Southmall in Las Piñas City, and the young singing actor was Jacob Benedicto, 23, ABS-CBN talent. The production was Gantimpala Theater’s Kanser the Musical by Jomar Fleras, a take-off on Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere. Jacob was playing Crisostomo Ibarra, the idealistic hero of the novel who sought to uplift his hometown through education and, in the process, rekindle his romance with Maria Clara (played by Myramae Meneses).

The love scenes were tame (remember this is the 19th century), but even these set the fans screaming. A dramatic highlight of the play had Ibarra, all alone on the stage, singing and emoting, down on one knee, agonizing on whether to continue with his reforms or to call for a revolution against the cancerous state (“reporma ba o rebolusyon”).

At the curtain call, all the cast members were applauded, of course, but Jacob was clearly the crowd favorite (along with the actors who played Sisa, Basilio and Crispin), maybe because there were more girls than boys or because they recognized him from his TV projects.

Finally, as they left the stage, Jacob let loose with a flying kiss; and pandemonium reigned.

The play was the singing actor’s first starring role in theater, and in classic Tagalog at that. He had to ask the help of colleague Michael Pangilinan (the other Ibarra) to improve his Tagalog, and the latter was happy to oblige. Thus, Jacob was able to acquit himself in the challenging role.

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“I really internalized my character, my role,” he recalls. “Ako talaga si Crisostomo Ibarra. I learned the message he was trying to convey. I really wanted to be authentic before the audience (no trace of a foreign accent) and give them my interpretation of the songs and the role of Ibarra. I really felt the character.”

Of Visayan-Tagalog parentage, Jacob (real name is Josemari Jacob Gayanelo) was born in Manila but at the age of five, his family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia because his father, a Unilab official, was assigned there.

He and his siblings studied at the International School in Jakarta. All their teachers were Americans and Europeans, so the young Gayanelos acquired an American accent. They stayed there for 10 years and Jacob returned to Manila a teenager, starting a career in theater with English-language companies like Trumpets and Repertory Philippines. “Michael Williams gave me my start in professional theater,” he says. “I owe a lot to him.”

A memorable experience for him was appearing for a year in Resorts World Manila’s The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein, in which he was with the ensemble, playing a young Nazi, a dancer and even a baron.

After that, he was ready for showbiz, appearing on TV5’s Baker King and Kanta Pilipinas and then in a slew of ABS-CBN shows and teleseryes like Ningning, Dream Dad, Ipaglaban Mo’s Akin Ka Lang episode, Maalaala Mo Kaya’s Manika episode, the Pure Love series, Pinoy Big Brother: All in and The Voice of the Philippines.

Last year, he appeared in Star Cinema’s Past Tense with Daniel Matsunaga, and is now preparing for a role in an indie film. Jacob as a singer is into pop, soul and OPM, has cut an album Pagka’t Ikaw, with songs by Jeffrey Hidalgo and is a Star Records talent. In between these commitments, he managed to finish Communication Arts studies (TV production, films and radio) at De La Salle University. He is also an events host.

“I learned discipline in theater,” he says. “And in TV, I learned to cope with the irregular working hours. My life is an emotional roller-coaster!”