ARTICLE - NO ONE CAN WAKE UP ON TIME

"NO ONE CAN WAKE UP ON TIME," SENATOR DELACRUZ OPPOSES DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME
(Defend Haiti) -

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Senator Frencesco Delacruz (Centre/Alternative) regrets the decision of President Michel Martelly to observe Daylight Savings Time in Haiti, pushing the time one hour ahead from March to November. Delacruz points to a situation where students and faculty in his department are sleeping in.

"...it has to do with saving energy, in the United States there is a specific reason why they change the time. But in our case, we have something fundamental here, the problem of insecurity..."

"...today, I feel like they [the Presidency] should not have changed the time."

Under the previous administration of Rene Preval, Daylight Savings Time was not observed. By Presidential Order, dated March 7th, Haiti observed the time change shared by many developed countries throughout the world, and advanced its clock by one hour, on the morning of March 11th, at 2:00AM.

But Senator Francesco Delacruz points to an instance of confusion at one of the nation's schools, Frere Guilliame, where "no can wake up on time."

According to the Senator of the Central Plateau, he encountered a situation where a child attempted to wake his mother to take him to school. The mother did not wake up saying, "the sun is not yet out."

Delacruz said, either the schools should keep to the same time as before, or the state should take its responsibility and say that the time won't change.

The senator believes the time change will produce very grave results:

"There will be more insecurity, and more deaths. There will be more kidnappings and more banditism, and at this time for the parents and the children, there will always be this same panic."

"As for myself, I believe we need to find a rapid solution to these things."

President Michel Martelly, in the Presidential Order dated March 7th, wrote that it was to enjoy more daylight hours in the afternoon. Senator Delacruz criticized this reasoning:

"You don't change the time to just change the time. You change it for a reason of optimizing function."

"In the United States this is normal, because there is a climatic variable. I was in Washington D.C. the other day, and one day it's cold and another day it's summer, but for us this is not possible."

"What are we defending here? Do we produce? What do we produce? Do we have energy? We don't even have energy, and I hear some people say it is to save energy"

Clocks in Haiti will be taken back one hour on the first Sunday of November.