The Philippines as a flourishing society

A month ago, I hosted an American woman who had come to the Philippines for an unusual reason. She is the president of a mental health institution in the United States and had decided to spend a month-long sabbatical here. It was not a vacation in the traditional sense. She came with a sense of curiosity — almost a quiet investigation.

Her goal was simple: to understand Filipino culture.

Over long conversations, shared meals and walks around the city, she told me what had drawn her here in the first place. It was a research report released in 2025 from the Global Flourishing Study, a major international collaboration among researchers at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, and the global analytics firm Gallup.

The study set out to answer one of humanity’s oldest questions: What does it mean to live a life well lived?

Rather than measuring success purely through wealth or economic growth, the researchers focused on something deeper — the idea of human flourishing. In their framework, flourishing is defined as the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the environment and communities in which they live. It is a refreshingly holistic view of well-being.

The researchers measured flourishing across six domains: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and financial and material stability. The scope of the project is extraordinary. The first wave of the study surveyed more than 207,000 participants across 22 countries and Hong Kong, covering populations that represent roughly 64 percent of the world.

When the results were released, one detail stood out to my visiting guest. Among all the countries studied, the highest levels of flourishing were found in Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines. Meanwhile, some of the world’s most developed economies — including Japan, Türkey and the United Kingdom — ranked significantly lower.

She told me she was fascinated by this. “How does a country facing so many economic challenges still rank among the most flourishing societies in the world?” she asked.

The question lingered with me long after she returned home.

In many ways, I have seen hints of the answer in my own life.

When I decided to move back to the Philippines, I quickly found something I had not realized I was missing: community. Within a short time, I had formed friendships that went far beyond casual social circles. These were not simply people to meet for dinner or occasional gatherings. They became part of my life in a deeper way. I met their families. I attended birthdays, weddings and small gatherings that marked the rhythms of everyday life. Even during difficult moments, they seemed to have time — not out of obligation, but out of genuine care.  There was a shared understanding that life is something we move through together.

A few months ago, our extended family gathered to celebrate my cousin’s 18th birthday. She lives in London, yet the celebration took place at our grandparents’ small provincial home a few hours away from Manila. Several members of our family live abroad — in California, Canada and London — in some of the most prosperous cities in the world. Yet when it came time to celebrate an important milestone, everyone felt that the Philippines was the right place to do it. Here, the celebration was not just about the occasion itself, but about being surrounded by generations of family, laughter and memories.

I have noticed something similar with visitors. Not long ago, I hosted a global investor based in Washington, D.C., who spends much of his life traveling between major financial capitals. He even travels in his own private plane, which makes global movement effortless. Yet when he needed a place for rest and recovery, he chose the Philippines for two weeks of quiet. He told me he was looking for something simple — peace, warmth and a sense of human connection.

Perhaps that is where the answer lies. Filipino culture carries a deeply rooted concept known as Kapwa — the recognition that we share a common identity with others. It is the belief that we are not separate from one another but fundamentally connected. You see this everywhere in daily life: in how neighbors care for each other, in the openness with which families welcome guests, and in the instinctive generosity that often appears even in communities with very little material wealth.

In a world that increasingly measures success through wealth, productivity and status, the Philippines offers a different perspective on what a life well lived might look like. Sometimes flourishing is not about having the most. Sometimes it is simply about having each other.

Mary Lou Cunanan is an international business and education leader, the first Harvard Business Publishing–accredited faculty advisor in the Philippines, and a former lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University. She has worked across 30+ countries with institutions including the U.S. Department of State and the Asian Development Bank, and currently serves as COO of Indieco and a TEDx Speaker and Coach.