BY HERBERT VEGO
FATHER’S Day is a red-letter day.
Why not? It is now celebrated worldwide every third Sunday of June to honor men who have fathered children.
While Western countries celebrate it like a birthday by giving gifts to the man, Father’s Day in the Philippines is a gathering of extended family – including grandpas, fathers and married sons as celebrators – for a lunch or dinner feast at home or in a restaurant, with their children footing the bill.
During the party, children reminisce “life with father.”
After the party, the fathers are treated to a shopping spree to buy their favorite things – say a pair of shoes or a shirt.
Like its corresponding Mother’s Day (second Sunday of May), the day highlights the cohesiveness of the Filipino family.
Admittedly, however, the practice has just been adopted from other countries that has been celebrating it way ahead of us.
The first recorded celebration of Father’s Day took place at Spokane, Washington on June 19, 1910 when a certain Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd tendered a family party in honor
of her ageing father, William Smart.
A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in the US Congress in 1913.
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father’s Day celebration and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized.
President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation.
In 1966, US President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as a non-holiday Father’s Day in the United States.
Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972./PN
