You’re happy and you just don’t know it

Are we happier? Relatively, over time, the answer is interestingly enough — yes, Filipinos are happier, relative to 2019 or the pre-pandemic level. Our score improved over that period, which includes our “unhappiest” year of 2022 when our life satisfaction score was at its lowest level. We are happier based on the data.

We can also look at this trend based on the Easterlin Paradox, a concept in happiness and behavioral economics that basically says that the happiness derived from income is positive only to a certain level. In other words, getting richer makes you happy, but only to a certain level.

While it is not indicative of this relationship, the three-year average life satisfaction score of the top five happiest countries, except for Costa Rica and Iceland, has been trending downwards since 2019. Iceland’s score has been generally flat.

This may suggest other factors are driving some dissatisfaction for wealthy nations. Within ASEAN, our richest peer is gradually improving, and it is Vietnam that has the sharpest upward trend. Surprisingly and again seemingly counterintuitive, the Philippines had the biggest improvement in the happiness score in Asia for 2026 (actually top 10 in terms of improvement).

What drives our happiness and unhappiness after adjusting for income? Our life satisfaction scores rank relatively high in two factors, namely, our families and friendships that provide (social support) and our ability to choose how to lead our life (freedom), like not wearing helmets for riders.

What makes us unhappy (or maybe satisfied) is our indifference to corruption. Trust in government accounts for only two percent of our happiness score. The top five happiest countries rank corruption as a material to their happiness. In other words, a government that promotes trust makes its citizens happier. Our indifference enables public officials to break that trust repeatedly, because they know it does not make us unhappy enough to demand change.

Pessimism over rising fuel prices notwithstanding, knowing as a nation that we are relatively happy is important. If we want to be happy, we know what we must do. Grow our incomes, keep our families and friends close, maybe “sacrifice” some of our freedoms by following the law, and demanding and holding public officials accountable by voting for good people or even running for office ourselves to make positive changes.

This is happiness for Filipinos. Now you know it, you may clap your hands, snap your fingers, stomp your feet.

Growing up, most of us heard the exercise song: “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” Well, how do you know if you are happy?

This may sound counterintuitive considering what is going on with fuel prices, but according to the World Happiness Report (WHR) for 2026, the Philippines ranked 56th of the approximately 140 countries evaluated.

The WHR is a product of the Wellbeing Research Center of the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the editorial board of the report.

The WHR has been reporting on happiness ratings and factors across the world since 2012, which probably makes its data the longest and most comparable that can be used in happiness economics (yes, there is such a thing).

The life satisfaction score, which is the metric for happiness, is determined by six factors, specifically: social support, GDP per capita, health expectancy, freedom, generosity and perceptions of corruption. In other words, happiness is driven by your friends and family, income, health, options, helping others, and trust in government.

Are we happy? Relative to the world, our current rank places the Philippines around the middle of the pack. The top five happiest countries are mostly Nordic, namely, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Costa Rica and Norway. Among our ASEAN peers, we are the fourth-happiest nation, with Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand being happier. In a sense, you could say that Filipinos are generally satisfied with their life.

The primary determinant of our happiness is income, which explains 21 percent of our satisfaction score. In happiness economics, one model of happiness is that it is determined by the level of income and the level of income relative to other countries.

The data support the positive relationship between income and happiness. Nearly all of the countries happier than the Philippines have higher GDP per capita than us. This is actually interesting because if income were the base factor, we are an anomaly. Based on the data, the Philippines may be the happiest poor nation.