A REPORT from Gallup’s “The World’s Most Generous” index revealed that Filipinos are among the least generous people in Southeast Asia in terms of donating money to a charity, volunteering their time to an organization, or helping a stranger or those in need.
According to the report involving 146 countries, the Philippines had a score of only 28 while other Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, which topped the rankings, scored 59.
Gallup Global Managing Partner Jon Clifton said that the purpose of the report is to showcase the generosity of the world despite the inhumane and terrifying occurrences that have transpired in our society at present.
“The report also sheds light on how generous the whole world is. With all the reports about crime, war and terrorism served up daily in the media, it may surprise you to find out how many people are actively working to make the world a better place,” Clifton said.
The report asked questions through telephone and face-to-face interviews with 1,000 adults per nation. Their respondents age ranges from 15 years old and older.
They compiled the “positive” responses into a Civic Engagement Index score for each country. The higher the score, the higher the proportion of the population that is “civically engaged.” The index score for the world overall in 2017 is 30 out of a possible 100.
“Almost 1 billion people reported volunteering their time to an organization in the past month, nearly 1.4 billion said they donated money to a charity and more than 2 billion reported helping a stranger in need,” Clifton added.
Gallup dispelled the notion that the scores were only high in rich countries. They said that other developing countries like Myanmar, topped the global rankings when it came to donating to charity, while Libya topped the rankings in terms of helping strangers who needed help.
“Regardless of who you think are the most generous countries in the world, this report suggests one important thing: You don’t need to be rich to give back. Some countries where people have far less to give are among the most generous,” Clifton said.
According to the results, the scores range from the highest: 59 in Indonesia and Australia to a low of 15 in Yemen. Among the countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), only Indonesia, Singapore and Myanmar had the highest civic engagement scores.
Myanmar and Singapore scored 54, making them among the most generous in the world. Thailand had a score of 34, Laos got 20 and Cambodia scored 18. Other ASEAN nations such as Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam were not included in the Gallup index.
Other countries found to have the highest civic engagement score in the 2017 report were New Zealand, the United States, Ireland, United Kingdom, Kenya and Bahrain.
The margin of sampling error ranges from ±2 percentage points to ±5.4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighing.