Today is April Fool’s

No one truly knows how the custom of playing practical jokes on the first day of April began. But most scholars believe that it is associated with the spring equinox. In India, for instance, they have been celebrating the Feast of Huli on March 31. That is one day before April 1st, but it is also commemorated by sending people on a fool’s errand and it is a feast that has been observed for countless centuries. Scholars have tried to dig up on the origins of April Fool’s Day, but none have come up with a documented explanation. Some tried to link it up with the Biblical story of the sending of Jesus from Annas to Caiphas, from Caiphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back to Pilate. But they have not been able to establish the connection. Another classical theory is that it is a survival of the Roman Cerealia, the feast of Ceres, the Roman name for Mother Earth, who was the protectress of all the fruits of the earth. But the only similarity with April Fool’s is that both feasts are celebrated on the same month.

What is a fact is that April fooling became customary in France after the adoptions of the reformed calendar by Charles IX in 1564 which made their calendar start on January 1. Before then, April 1 was the New Year and people customarily exchanged gifts. And so pranksters started sending mock gifts during April 1, or the old New Year. In France, a person fooled on April 1st is called poisson d ’avril, or April fish. There are two explanations for the term. One says that it is because the sun is leaving the zodiacal sign of Pisces; the other, that fish is easily caught in April.

In the Philippines, April Fool’s has not really caught on. This is because we already had an All Fool’s Day, which is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. That is when people play practical jokes on gullible victims.

America’s great contribution to our holiday customs is still Santa Claus and Valentine’s Day. Santa Claus has literally displaced the Infant Jesus as the central figure of the Christmas day celebration. Children look forward to getting gifts from Santa Claus during Christmas. Before the American period, gifts were given and exchanged during the Epiphany, more popularly known as the Feast of the Three Kings. Now, the epiphany is a movable feast made to coincide with the first Sunday of January that does not fall on a New Year and the Three Kings are no longer officially recognized by the Church. Valentine’s Day is still only celebrated by the so-called elite, but it has been gaining ground because restaurants have been using it to boost their clientele on that particular day.

Last year, a prankster sent text messages that Pope John Paul II had died. This year by sheer coincidence, Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin is in the hospital, but thank God, he is alive and well. There was also a year when rumors of a weekend coup against then-President Joseph Estrada was the biggest April Fool’s Day joke.

In our opinion, the best way to make April Fool’s Day a meaningful celebration is to make it either the official national election day or the day when the annual session of both houses of Congress starts. That would give every person a cause of celebrate.