|
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Covington: The big issue: Daylight Saving Time
By Gary Covington
Looking In
TUCKED away on Friday's business pages was an item reporting on the government's proposal that the country adopt Daylight Saving Time (DST) -- the practice of advancing or retarding a nation's clocks to make better use of the daytime between sunrise and sunset.
It's a practice long since adopted, necessarily adopted, in countries of northern latitudes where the tilt of the earth's axis produces marvelously long summer days but brutally short winter ones. But -- the Philippines?
We live only a handful of degrees north of the equator, the earth's girdle, which no matter whether winter or summer is always shoved towards the sun. Sunrise and sunset -- give or take forty-five minutes -- occur at the same time every day of the year. To my way of thinking the introduction of DST to this country is just another wild idea from the government's 'let's make life really complicated for the people' department and anyway, I have a much better suggestion.
Why not introduce instead some conformity into store opening and closing times and relate them, with a pinch of common sense, to working and business hours. Introduce Department of Health (DOH)- Daylight Opening Hours - and not DST.
The main thrust of the DST scheme is to save power consumed and thus imported oil and gas (although no one mentions that a large proportion of the nation's energy is generated from geothermal or hydroelectric sources or that most of the country's imported fuel gurgles directly into autos and trucks). Fine. But imagine the energy saved if the city's cavernous and air-conditioned and dazzlingly lit malls were to close their doors at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. instead of the current 10 p.m. Who shops at 10 at night?
Shopping in Davao has to be managed like a military exercise. Local markets, bakeries and a scattering of general stores open at dawn to catch the early trade. Then there's a yawning gap until 10 a.m. when most of the other shops and the malls open their doors. Take a walk down Magsaysay Avenue at 10.30 a.m. Many shops are open but some are still dragging open their shutters and hurry -- they'll clang closed again at midday for lunch and maybe - maybe - open again at 1.30 p.m.
Once upon a time folks rose with the sun and went to bed at dusk. Then came gas and electricity and night could be switched to day but there was still only so much energy available. In my childhood shops (and businesses and government offices) opened their doors at 9 a.m. and closed at 5 p.m. On Sundays shops didn't open at all and there was generally a half-day closing somewhere, usually on a Wednesday.
By the 70s the world was swimming in energy as more and more oil and gas reserves were proven and brought on line. We hadn't heard of global warming and photos of night side earth taken from space showed a city-lit glittering and glistening globe (anybody who's flown long haul will have experienced a similar phenomenon - at night, even from only 30,000 feet up, from miles and miles away cities glow as if some gigantic light bomb has been exploded).
Now, we're in a new century. Previously slumbering giants like India and China are demanding ever more energy in the form of oil and gas even as the world's readily accessible reserves dwindle. Prices have gone haywire; up, up and away and as a result so too has the price of just about everything.
Want to save energy? Forget DST and introduce DOH. One final argument; we have enough trouble coping with non-working holidays and working non-working holidays and instant pogi-point holidays. Someone tell me how the nation will manage to remember, twice a year, to adjust its clocks. And alarms. And computers. And digital everything. Can we have a little common sense please Malacañang?
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (May 3, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
