Tomorrow is Father’s Day

Tomorrow we commemorate Father’s Day, a holiday that we inherited from the Americans. The United States was the first nation to have an official Father’s Day celebration. The closest thing to a Father’s Day celebration in the past was the Roman Parentalia, which was observed in February from the 13th to the 22nd. The celebration, however, was not for living fathers, but for all departed parents and relatives. It was actually a family reunion held to appease the souls of the departed. In actuallity, it was more of an All Soul’s Day than a Father’s Day celebration. The best indication of this was that the observance was held at the cemetery.

The truth is that Father’s Day started in different places in the United States and the celebrations were totally independent from each other. On July 5, 1908, a special service in honor of fathers was held at the Central Church of Fairmont, West Virginia. Four years later, the Irving Methodist Church in Vancouvers, Washington also had a special ceremony to commemorate Father’s Day and they were under the wrong impression that they were initiating an original celebration. It was the Lions Club that propagated the celebration all over the United States and they were also the first to suggest making the third Sunday of June as its official day. But it was not till 1972 that President Richard M. Nixon signed a Congressional Resolution designating that date not only as Father’s Day, but as an official holiday.

Since it was the Americans that started our Father’s Day celebration every third Sunday of June, we quote what Adlai E. Stevenson said before the National Father’s Day Committee in 1961: "In a very real sense, a father’s relations with his children should be a microcosmic reflection of their relations with the society in which they live. Through his actions, father must teach his children the intrinsic meaning of the democratic concept of freedom from restraint and the nature of integrity."

In short, leadership by example, Father should be the most esteemed word. So much so that the Bible itself says "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." To God Himself, as William Wordsworth said, "we cannot give a holier name."

Sad but true, Father’s Day is hardly celebrated in the Philippines. During Spanish times, our fiestas were part and parcel of our lives because of the church. Today, no one propagates the celebration of Father’s Day. In fact, we have no mode of celebrating the day. So it is just another ordinary day.

Unless the schools take up the cause of having a more or less standard way of celebrating Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day for that matter), it will be a holiday in name only. That is why many of our celebrations just die down. Take the annual EDSA commemoration. Every year there are less and less people. Why? it has not become a people’s celebration. The role of the people has been reduced to just listen to the speeches of politicians. In EDSA, it was the politicians that had to follow the people.

How does one celebrate Father’s Day in the Philippines? I certainly don’t know.