What Time is it in the Philippines?

When your family is half way around the globe, it’s hard to stay in touch, especially when they are in a completely different time zone and across the International Date Line, which often means it’s already tomorrow in the Philippines! So how do you determine what is a good time to call? Many of us in the U.S. add or subtract hours from our local time. But there’s an added complexity – Daylight Saving Time or Standard Time.

At remithome, headquartered in California, we recently changed to Pacific Daylight Time, one hour ahead of Pacific Standard Time. This means we are now 15 hours behind the Philippines, which does not change its time.

Why isn’t Daylight Saving Time used everywhere? The article below describes Daylight Saving Time and why it is not used in the Philippines. Our Ask remithome section explains our transaction processing at 2:00 PM, Pacific Time.

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 Daylight Saving Time Around the World

Most U.S. states (except Arizona and Hawaii) begin Daylight Saving Time by setting clocks forward one hour at 2:00 AM on the second Sunday in March. Clocks are then turned back one hour on the first Sunday in November with the reversion to Standard Time. We remember the direction of the adjustment with the phrase “spring forward, fall back”.

Currently, some 70 countries use Daylight Saving Time in at least part of the country. But Japan, China, and India are major industrialized countries that do not use it.

Why Doesn’t the Philippines use Daylight Saving Time?

To understand why the Philippines does not use Daylight Saving Time, it’s important to understand why other countries do. For countries far from the equator, days are longer during the summer months than they are in the winter. So, to make better use of daylight during these longer days, Daylight Saving Time shifts an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening.

The Philippines, and most other tropical countries, do not observe Daylight Saving Time, because there is no reason to do so. Near the equator, day and night are nearly the same length (12 hours) all year round, so there is no advantage to changing the time twice a year.

If you want to know more about the history of Daylight Saving Time, which countries observe it, and much more, visit this Daylight Saving Time website.