Paul Goyette wrote:
Hmmm, the silence here is deafening!
Sorry, I've been busy with TZif stuff when I had time for tz-related things. When I looked into this a couple of years ago, I looked for instances of "PHST" for Philippine Standard Time, as that is what tzdb used. I found few so PHST didn't make the cut. I didn't know about PST being part of recent Philippine law. I just now checked more carefully, and found several instances of PST meaning Philippine Standard Time in reliable English-language sources. PST is the abbreviation tzdb used in releases 93g through 96j, and (as you reported) has been in Philippines law since 2013. For example: The Philippine Star https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/08/01/1723584/partial-lunar-eclipse-... Philippine Daily Inquirer http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/643218/on-wednesday-night-moon-will-turn-dark-b... ABS-CBN http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/08/04/17/save-the-date-partial-lunar-eclipse-to... Conversely, some sources used PhST for the same thing, including: Manila Bulletin https://news.mb.com.ph/2017/10/07/candon-laoag-cities-sync-timepieces-with-p... Philippine Information Agency http://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1003782 BusinessMirror https://businessmirror.com.ph/no-more-filipino-time-it-should-be-on-time/ I did find a few instances of PHST as well (this is what tzdb used in releases 96k through 2016j), but they were mostly in less-reliable sources. Here's an example: Philippine Daily Inquirer http://esports.inquirer.net/6762/the-international-5-invites-are-here So, it does appear that reliable English-language sources use alphabetic abbreviations for Philippine time, but (a) they don't agree, and (b) they mostly don't use the "PHST" abbreviation that tzdb used in 1996 through 2016. All in all, my impression is that "PST" is more popular among reliable English-language sources. This is not just a measure of Google hit counts: it's looking at the sizes and influence of the sources. So, my inclination would be to go back to "PST" for Philippines time, the way tzdb had it in 1993 through 1996.