by Ram Maxey
ONE may have to take with a grain of salt some of the findings in the so-called Philippine Happiness Index (PHI) being conducted by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) under NSCB secretary-general Romulo A. Virola. The latter was in Davao recently as guest of the 7th Mindanao Statistical Congress held at the University of Mindanao Matina campus.
One of the points Virola raised at the occasion was that initial findings of the PHI showed that while Filipino women in low-income families are happiest with their families, poor men are happiest with their sex life. Well, now, there may be readers out there who would probably have something to say about such findings. Since a consensual sexual act is like the tango, which takes two to perform, how come a poor man is happy doing it while his equally poor partner is happy thinking of something else – her family, for instance? Does not make sense.
According to the study, in terms of actual levels of happiness, overall, women are not as happy as men. Why? Also, that both women and men are happiest in education, love life, and friends. and both are most unhappy with politics, the environment, government, and peace and security. I can understand both men and women being unhappy about the environment or peace and security or government, but unhappy about politics? That’s debatable. We have seen how our countrymen (and women) tend to turn agog when election time comes around. They take their politics seriously.
Only those who lose or bet on losing candidates are unhappy. But the winners are ecstatic, as in.
You go to the slums, the squatter areas and are startled hearing sounds of laughter emanating from ramshackle dwellings in which you can hardly expect to see happy faces under such circumstances. Even the poorest of the poor of our brethren are quick to laugh and you wonder why. Perhaps, it’s a built-in mechanism that helps compensate for the fact of one’s deprivation. Laughter, somehow, helps one keep his sanity. For isn’t it true that laughter is the best medicine? Oh, well – sometimes, that is. Laughter is a bit of happiness.
And what about the occasional millionaire, who has everything to make life worthwhile and more, but who in a moment of despondency shoots himself in the head or leaps from a ten-story building to his death? You can’t make heads or tails of that, either.
