Filipino Time

A recent news item in a national broadsheet says the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration or Pagasa believes FM radio stations in the Philippines are generally to blame for giving out inaccurate time, further fanning embers for Pinoys already in the hot seat for their notorious “Filipino time.”

Pagasa is the Philippines official timekeeper according to Section 6 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 8, which states that Pagasa shall be responsible for the establishment, maintenance and operation of the National Standard. Presidential Decree No. 1149 also assigned Pagasa as the official agency to disseminate the PST.

Together with a group called Organized Response for the Advancement f Society (Oras), they called the attention of the broadcast industry to this discrepancy, and in the same breath, advocated a change in “Filipino time,” which is usually an hour later than scheduled.

Oras, founded by former Supreme Court Justice Emilio K. Gancayco, promotes respect for the rights of others through the basic act of respecting their time. In support of this initiative, the sitting president declared November as “Punctuality and Civility Month” to promote time consciousness among Filipinos.

Pagasa said FM stations are generally to blame for the giving out time in their stations which have a “big discrepancy with Philippine Standard Time or PST. AM radio stations and TV stations were found to be more accurate, deviating only by about 20 seconds from the PST, the official time as indicated by Pagasa’s rubidium-based atomic clock.

This rubidium clock has an accuracy of one-billionth of a second, and would not deviate by a second in the next 32 years. Hmmm…that’s long enough for anyone to be late for the next three decades and some. This clock is kept at Pagasa’s observatory on the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City.

In a circular issued to the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP) in 2004, Pagasa advised KBP members to get the PST and use this in their time checks and the time being flashed on the screen. PST is necessary because there are differences in actual time, or the exact time in the country’s various provinces depending on their global position.

Every 15-degree movement to the east of the 120 longitude registers a time difference of one hour while every one-degree movement to the east indicates a difference of one minute.

Davao, for example, is 22 minutes ahead of Metro Manila, which is four minutes ahead of Iba, Zambales, whose time is closest to the PST. But Pagasa says that the law mandates that all citizens, whether corporate, collective or individual, follow a single time all over the country, which is the PST. This is to avoid further confusing the Pinoys whose time pieces, whether they are PST or GMT, are already generally an hour late.

I’ve always wondered why when I was traveling either to Manila from Cagayan de Oro, or vice versa, there always seemed to be a 15-20 minute difference with the time at either destination from the time in the place of origin. And this remarkable fact was validated by many friends who experienced the same phenomenon.

It’s wonderful of Pagasa to come out in the open now and clarify matters regarding PST. So suma total, the FM stations are not exactly to blame. They were indeed giving out the accurate time in their time zones, but are most probably not informed till now about PST. In all my days in school until the time I finished my masteral studies in Xavier University, I did not get to know about PST.

We laud Pagasa and Oras for helping make amends about “Filipino Time”, albeit on a better-late-than-never basis. It’s obvious that even with the help of media, disseminating the official PST to all and sundry will take more than officially declaring a month every year as “Punctuality and Civility Month.” You just can’t legislate people’s compliance with something as crucial as the PST, and neither can the law mandating a PST.

But I like the ring of “Punctuality and Civility.” Being punctual is being civil to your colleagues and the people you deal with on a daily basis, and PST is the anchor on which that civility arises from.

We hope Pagasa and the local chapter of the KBP can come together to be more aggressive in promoting PST, especially to young children who will be the ones to either carry on or drop our infamous (or perhaps notoriety is the more appropriate word, considering how long the trait has already existed and its tenacity in resisting any reforms to eradicate it) legacy of “Filipino Time.”

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