Daylight Saving Time (DST) kicked in at 2 am on Sunday, March 12, as clocks in the United States, in an annual ritual, "sprang forward" by an hour to make more productive use of available daylight.
DST ends when clocks "fall back" (gaining one hour) at 2 am on Sunday, November 5.
For the hundreds of thousands of call center or business process outsourcing (BPO) employees in Metro Manila and other major cities in the country DST is a reality because they adhere to the business hours of their clients who are mainly in the United States. Admittedly, though, the impact is minimal. Working on graveyard shift, starting an hour earlier hardly makes any difference.
DST was actually enforced in the Philippines for short periods during the presidency of Manuel L. Quezon in 1936-1937, Ramon Magsaysay in 1954, Ferdinand Marcos in 1978, and Corazon Aquino in 1990. In 2014, there was a proposal to enforce DST again but it was not implemented.
Labels: Misc