We know that quality of life is wonderful and essential to have. It’s one of those abstractions that can be felt as a real problem if it is missing, but sometimes isn’t feted when it’s there. If quality of life is absent – if we have consistently bad governance or consistently unabated peace and order situation – it won’t matter how good our government’s service delivery is, the citizens will become unhappy and start looking elsewhere.
To understand the concept, Ms. Fedi Magpantay, executive director of AC Nielsen, suggested in her Ad Congress dissertation that we revisit Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – a theory which says that human beings are motivated by needs, not so much by the needs that have already been met as by the needs that have yet to be satisfied. Man’s needs follow a hierarchy or order – the lower level needs must be first met before the higher levels can be satisfied.
The Ladder Of Needs Maslow, as Magpantay summarized, painted man as basically trustworthy, self-protecting, self-governing, and capable of acting unselfishly. However when human needs are frustrated, violence can occur. Self-actualization, which is the highest level of need, comes after the lower needs such as physiological, safety, love, and esteem have been adequately addressed.
Physiological needs occupy the lowest level in Maslow’s pyramid. They are man’s basic needs such as food, water, sleep, rest, and sex. When these needs are not met, sickness irritation, pain and discomfort will set in. Once they are satisfied, however, we can start thinking, planning and doing other things.
Safety needs deal with establishing stability and consistency in a world filled with confusion and chaos. They are psychological in nature, and include the need for law and order, and security of home and family. Love and belongingness are next on the ladder. We desire to be with family, and groups that we share interest with. We desire for applause and appreciation for our good performance. We need to be needed.
What follows love is esteem, which comes in two types. One is self-esteem resulting from competence or mastery of the task, and the other is the attention and recognition that come from other people. At the apex of the pyramid is the craving for self-actualization. It pertains to the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming. Self-actualized people are seen to be problem focused, concerned about personal growth, have the ability to reach peak experiences, cognitive, and are aesthetically inclined. When we arrive at this level, we can maximize our potential.
Magpantay generously shared her analysis of the quality of life in the Philippines. Let us look at some statistics culled by her group from various government agencies such as the National Statistics Office, the Department of Health, the Food and Nutrition Research Institute, and the National Statistics Coordination Board, plus data drawn from AC Nielsen researches. Here’s a lowdown of where we are.
The Urbanization Of Juan Dela Cruz To date, the country is more urbanized. Forty-eight percent of the population lives in the city. Urbanization was a result of the natural increase in population, migration of people from the rural areas to cities and town centers, and the reclassification of rural places to urban areas in the wake of progress and development. The median age has risen from 16 to 21, and the proportion of individuals below 15 years old has dwindled. These changes have resulted in a lower dependency ratio of just 69 dependents for every 100 persons in the productive age band as compared to 96 dependents in 1970.
The Filipino house is sturdier. Now, only 22 percent of houses have thatched roofs since many homeowners could now afford galvanized iron or aluminum roofs. Sixty-eight percent of households now have electricity for lighting, and many have switched to LPG instead. Access to potable water has likewise increased, and nearly half of all households now get their water from a faucet connected to a community water system and a fourth source their water from a piped deep well. Nine percent continue to have any toilet facility at all and 17 percent continue to use antipolos or open pits, but those with sanitary or water-sealed toilets have increased from 23 percent in 1970 to the current level of 72 percent.
The population of the country has continued to grow at a fast rate, resulting in higher population density. In 1970, there were 122 persons per square kilometer, now it is 255. In 1970, Metro Manila’s density was still a comfortable 6,234 people per square kilometer, but now it is congested, suffocating 15,617 persons per square kilometer.
Literacy has gone higher for the Philippines. The sad note, though, is that only two out of three elementary schoolchildren will stay in school. The rest will drop out, a problem that has persisted unabated for at least a decade. Only three out of four go to high school, although this is an improvement from what it was 10 years ago. Only a little over half of high-school age kids actually pursue higher education. This positive development is partly due to the fact that the 1987 Philippine Constitution mandates free secondary education.
Inside Our Homes Over the past 7 years, the possessions of Filipino families have become more numerous. The number of households owning a TV set in 2000 is more than double that in mid ‘80s. Now, one in four homes all over the country already owns recreational appliances such as karaoke, audio cassette players and recorders, video recorders or VHS players. Stereos are on the wane as families favor modern music equipment such as compact disc players. Twelve percent are already hooked to cable TV.
Household help continues to be as rare as hen’s teeth, except in upper and middle class homes in urban areas. Thus, two out of three households nationwide continue to be managed by a full-time, stay-at-home housewife. Labor saving devices – floor polishers, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, and clothes dryers – are presently found in less than three percent of households, making housekeeping essentially as backbreaking as it was decades ago. Washing machines, though, have a wider ownership. They are now found in a third of homes at the national level. In urban areas, 41 percent of even the so-called D or lower class dwellings already have a washing machine.
The Filipino kitchen remains rather basic, equipped mainly with a gas or electric stove, a refrigerator, and much less frequently, a rice cooker. Items like air conditioners, cameras and even hair dryers are found mainly in upscale AB and middle or C class homes. An electric fan however is found in 62 percent of households, making it the second most widely owned appliance next to TV.
Lifestyle Diseases Four decades ago, a person born in 1960 could expect to live for 53 years, but in 2000, life expectancy has lengthened to almost 68 years. The mortality rate has gone down. Deaths due to illnesses traditionally associated with poverty and poor healthcare have gone down noticeably. The Filipino, indeed, is getting healthier and stronger. "Not so fast though," Magpantay asserted. "Something alarming seems to be happening. First, deaths due to accidents are occurring twice as much in 1998 as they did in 1968," she added.
About thrice as many people are dying from heart ailments and diseases of the vascular system in 1990 compared to 30 years ago. These are called lifestyle diseases since they are usually traced not to viruses and microbes but to bad habits like smoking, lack of physical exercise, stress, and eating the wrong kinds of food or taking them in excess.
Our diet is generally deficient, and is usually short of the recommended dietary allowances. Between 1978 and 1993, the Filipinos’ food consumption pattern deteriorated. The average Filipino was eating fewer and fewer grams of cereals, vegetables and fruits. He was also consuming decreasing servings of many other foods. On the other hand, his consumption of cholesterol-rich foods like meat and meat products, and eggs and egg products was rising.
Unemployment has been rising recently, from an average of 9.95 percent in 2001, to 11.15 percent in 2002, and 11.83 percent in 2003. Wages and salaries are steadily becoming the sole source of families’ income. Which means that incomes are more or less predictable and hopefully constant, but also therefore inflexible. Less and less income has come from entrepreneurial endeavors, suggesting that it has become harder to go into business in the Philippines. However, with the increase in Filipino overseas workers, remittances from abroad are accounted for a bigger share of the Filipino family’s income.
Very little income redistribution has occurred between 1985 and now. Fifty-three percent of income in the country is in the vaults of 20 percent of families while only 5 percent are in the purses of the poorest 20 percent, which spend more than they earn. Government data set the poverty threshold at 11.
"With the above data in mind, let us then revisit Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and use it as the prism through which we can assess how quality of life has evolved in our country," Magpantay suggested. At what level in the hierarchy are we? "Given the statistics it would seem that for a large chunk of our people, we are still at the first level as we seek wide, consistent, and sustained satisfaction of our basic physiological needs," Magpantay underscored.
There are so much to be done, both by government and the private sector to move up from the physiological base, and enjoy the safety, the love, the esteem and self-actualization that we all richly deserve.
We can only hope that our journey to the peak of the prism will be paved with positive developments. This can be purred by a leadership that will focus its direction to all our hopes and aspirations, and will go beyond the basic.