Gross national happiness

Finance Secretary Ralph Recto welcomed Fitch Ratings’ recent affirmation of our BBB credit rating with a ‘Stable’ outlook.

Retaining our investment-grade credit rating is always a big thing for our economic managers, and for good reason… It allows our government and private sector to get good interest rates when borrowing internationally. It can also convince a foreign investor to invest, but in our case, not so much.

DEPDev Secretary Arsi Balisacan, on the other hand, is optimistic that “we are well-positioned to achieve upper-middle-income status by 2026.” World Bank data last year showed we remained a lower-middle-income country, despite the increase in our GNI per capita to $4,230 in 2023 from $3,950 in 2022.

But how relevant are these economic numbers to the everyday lives of ordinary Filipinos?

Recall that PNoy posted the most consistent high GDP growth rates, averaging around six percent, with a high of 7.15 percent in 2016. We received our first-ever investment-grade credit rating on March 27, 2013, when Fitch Ratings upgraded the country’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating from BB+ to BBB-. Other major credit rating agencies eventually recognized the Philippines’ improved economic standing.

Yet, at the end of PNoy’s term, the voters so despised him that they elected Duterte instead of his anointed candidate, Mar Roxas. That also marked the end of the Liberal Party. Just being identified with the “yellows” is a political kiss of death, even now.

Ordinary Pinoys say they didn’t feel PNoy’s economic golden age. What they saw were rich Pinoys getting richer, and very little of the economic gains trickled down to the grassroots. They saw Duterte as one who would kick the elites on their behalf.

If BBM is impressed by what his economic managers tell him, he will be in deep trouble. A recent SWS survey indicates a rise in the number of Filipinos who consider themselves poor.

In the SWS survey last April 2025, the percentage of self-rated poor families was 55 percent — three points up from 52 percent in March 2025. This number has been rising steadily for four consecutive months since declining sharply by 13 points, from 63 percent in December 2024 to 50 percent in January 2025.

Anyway, there must be a better way of determining how well people are living other than GDP.

A king of Bhutan devised gross national happiness (GNH) as a better measure of national progress beyond economic factors by focusing on well-being and happiness. It measures various aspects of human life, not just economic growth.

I asked ChatGPT to tell me more about GNH, and it introduced me to the World Happiness Report, which evaluates countries based on factors such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perceptions of corruption.

The happiest country in the world, according to this report, is Finland, trailed closely by Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. The report has been released annually since 2012 by a consortium of groups including Gallup. These four Nordic nations are all stable democracies with prosperous and healthy citizens.

In the 2025 World Happiness Report, the Philippines ranks 57th out of 147 countries, with an average happiness score of 6.107. This is a slight decline from its 53rd place in 2024, despite a modest increase in the overall score from 6.048.

Compared with our regional peers, the Philippines holds the 4th position, trailing behind Singapore – 34th globally (6.565); Vietnam – 46th globally (6.352); Thailand – 49th globally (6.222). All the while, I thought Filipinos were the happiest.

Now there is the Global Flourishing Study by Harvard and Baylor universities that offers a broader view of well-being.

The social scientists working on this study wrote an article in The New York Times, published last April 30, based on their first year of data from a five-year project that poses more than 100 questions to more than 200,000 people across 22 countries on six continents. Combining answers to questions regarding several domains of well-being — health, happiness, meaning, character, social relationships, and material prosperity — they calculated a composite flourishing score for each country.

In this study, the Philippines ranked third globally, following Indonesia and Israel. This high ranking of the Philippines underscores the importance of strong social connections and community involvement in the overall well-being of Filipinos. Apparently, flourishing extends beyond economic indicators.

I have always suspected these social connections are behind the so-called resilience of Filipinos in the face of disasters, natural and man-made. We will probably never be angry enough to revolt because we patiently bear hardships with the help of family and friends.

Here is what the social scientists wrote in the NYT about their study:

“Our findings present a different picture of global well-being… When we widened the aperture, the picture changed: Sweden had only the 13th-highest composite flourishing score, essentially tied with the United States, and considerably lower than Indonesia, the Philippines, and even Nigeria, whose 2023 gross domestic product per capita was just under two percent of America’s…

“Across the whole sample of 22 countries, the overall national composite flourishing actually decreased slightly as GDP per capita rose… Most of the countries that reported high overall composite flourishing may not have been rich in economic terms, but they tended to be rich in friendships, marriages, and community involvement – especially involvement in religious communities…

“To be clear: Being poor is not desirable, and we should strive to improve material conditions. But our research… should prompt people to wonder whether prioritizing economic growth and material prosperity above all else has imposed costs on developed nations — and is likely to impose these costs on the developing economies that follow the path of Europe and its colonial offshoots.”

Happiness can be as simple as having something to eat each day… Getting health care when needed… Being free to live in peace with family and community. Mababa lang ang ating kaligayahan.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco.