It could get worse, you know.

We are no longer surprised by the ever-lengthening  string of bad news tying the country in knots?

Talk about the Grinch who stole Christmas: As the country dresses up in the best holiday attire and serves up the Yuletide fare, the capital – while all made up for the long festive celebration —  languishes in the low end of  the global ranking of living  standards. 

It’s difficult to deck the halls with boughs of holly while Manila ranks 128 out of 221 cities in the world, according to Mercer’s 2011 Quality of Living ranking highlights.

The Quality of Living Survey is based on political and social environment, medical and health considerations, public services and transport, consumer goods, economic environment, socio-cultural environment, schools and education, natural environment, recreation and housing criteria.

New York serves as the base city for the ranking.   

Manila scored 173rd in personal safety, which is based on measures of internal stability, crime levels, law enforcement effectivenessm and host country international relations.

This comes as no surprise at all: As Christmas draws near, petty crime also rises as holiday shoppers and plain revelers fall victim to armed robbery, pick-pocketing, purse snatching, among others.

Vienna has the best living standard in the world – and Baghdad the worst, according to a consulting group that annually ranks the globe’s major cities.

Top 10 most livable cities are Vienna, Zurich, Auckland, Munich, Dusseldorf, Vancouver, Frankfurt, Geneva, and Bern tied with Copenhagen at 9th.

Meanwhile, the top 10 safest cities in the world are Luxembourg, Bern, Helsinki, Zurich, Vienna, Geneva, Stockholm, Singapore, Auckland and Wellington, both ranked 9th.

Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney all rank 25, and all the Japanese cities on the list (Tokyo, Kobe, Nagoya, Osaka, and Yokohama) rank 31. The region’s lowest-ranking city for personal safety is Karachi, Pakistan (216).

Singapore was found to have the best living standards in Asia, coming in at 25th position in the rankings, and Tokyo is at 46th.

Mercer also gave German and Swiss cities top rankings, putting four of them among the first five, and said European cities represent over half of the top 25 graded.

The Austrian capital regularly ranks high in such surveys.

Though it is rising, the crime rate in Vienna is still among the lowest in Europe. Public transportation and other services are excellent, and streets are clean.