Best way to teach a good habit is thru stomach

Perhaps the best way to teach a habit is through the stomach.

To help Filipinos learn that being on time is more fun in the Philippines, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is pursuing partnerships with restaurants in hopes of turning timely food delivery into a national habit of being prompt.

The DOST spokesperson, Raymund Liboro, said the department was pursuing partnerships with restaurants providing food delivery service as part of its “Juan Time” project, an initiative that aims to teach Filipinos respect for time and to avoid being late.

A popular pizza chain earlier also adopted the time  campaign, promising prompt food delivery in all its branches.

With the partnerships, Liboro hopes that customers who enjoy timely service would also be inspired to be on time in their daily lives.

“If the pizza delivery comes late, it would mean a penalty. This should also be our mindset—to commit not to be late because we are holding on to the ‘true’ time, the Juan Time,” Liboro said.

“Our concept of good service is always linked to timely delivery. So we ourselves should be able to observe that,” he told the Inquirer.

According to Liboro, food delivery has become an alternative form of time check for those who order: Servers tell you the time and ask you to synchronize your clock with theirs.

“Essentially, we want to do better this year. And the first thing to help us be better is to be on time,” Liboro said.

The DOST and the Manila office of Discovery Channel launched the “Juan Time” initiative last year, hoping to redefine the notoriously late “Filipino time” into the new national habit of being prompt.

In pursuing the program, the DOST urged other government agencies to follow a single standard time in their offices.

Recently, at the turn of the year, the DOST also called on Filipinos to synchronize their watches with Philippine Standard Time (PST) so  everybody would welcome the New Year at the same time.

The weather bureau, which is administered by the DOST, is the country’s official timekeeper, maintaining accurate time through a precision system: a rubidium atomic clock plus global positioning.

PST is displayed on the bureau’s website, www.weather.gov.ph.

Liboro said the DOST was also developing an affordable LED digital clock, which displays precision time and has messaging capability.