It was a simple text message, saying ‘Pope John Paul II just died.’

It was sent on April 1, 2004, and many ignored it.

“Hindi ako naniwala (I didn’t believe) because it was April 1 and so I thought it was just a joke,” said Chito, a fresh journalism graduate student back then.

For Chito, the message was a bad joke to play on people on April Fools' Day.

A year later, the bad joke turned into a cruel one, said Chito.

On April 2, 2005, the Vatican announced the death of the Pope.

It may not be a legal holiday, but April Fools’ Day is faithfully observed just like other regular holidays in the world.

For eager pranksters, the day calls for the supreme exercise of jokes, hoaxes and tricks. April Fools’ Day is considered one of the most light-hearted traditions

people have observed for centuries.

The origin of April Fools’ Day is still a mystery with many theories competing for legitimacy, including one saying it began in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII

ordered the replacement of the Julian calendar.

Popular tradition had it that some Europeans were unaware of the change and continued to celebrate the New Year on April 1 of the Julian calendar.

A professor of history at Boston University, Joseph Boskin, provided another explanation. He said that April Fools began during the reign of Constantine.

An amused Constantine, it was said, allowed a court jester named Kugel to be king for one day. The jester, in turn, passed an edict declaring that day, April 1, a

“day of absurdity,” which then became an annual event.

The Associated Press (AP) ran this story. It took the respected wire agency a couple of weeks to realize that it was a victim of an April Fools' Day joke. Boskin

made up the story.

Others believe that April Fools’ Day is an ancient practice. Although these were not celebrated on the same date, ancient cultures observed a day when people

played jokes on each other.

Poland, Scotland and Denmark celebrate their own prank days distinctively, and all serious activities are avoided during this day.

The French, on the other hand, call April 1 Poisson d’Avril or “April Fish” when French children tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, then

cry out “Poisson d’Avril.”

Jokes vary from false warnings to perplexing news or sending people in a never-ending errand.

Over the years, though, the simple tricks have turned into large-scale, sophisticated and elaborate hoaxes that even involved various media.

One well-known prank was the so-called “spaghetti trees” released by the BBC in its television program in 1957.

A large number of people were fooled that the Swiss were harvesting spaghetti from trees and many actually called up the BBC wanting to know how to

cultivate their own spaghetti trees. The hoax was filmed in St. Albans.

In the Philippines, the day of tomfoolery is celebrated every December 28, more popularly known as Niños Inocentes (Day of the Holy Innocents). This is also

practiced in Belgium and other Latin countries.

The day recalls Herod’s order to his soldiers to slaughter all infant boys in Bethlehem around the time of the birth of Jesus in the hope of preventing the

emergence of the prophesied Messiah.

On Dec. 28, 2007, in the middle of an afternoon rush hour, Light Rail Transit (LRT) passengers got a cruel joke for Niños Inocentes when a crack in the rails

forced an emergency repair. The passengers were forced to get down at the Jose Abad Santos station in Tondo where the crack affected a portion of the rails

between that station and Blumentritt in Santa Cruz, Manila.

A girl friend also had experience being fooled on April 1.

“I left a pocketbook in a favorite salon. I learned the guy who picked it up told the owner he wanted to personally return it because he was interested in me,”

said Megan, a 27-year old call center agent.

“We dated on a March 31. Then on April 1, while I was walking at Greenbelt mall in Makati, I saw him holding hands with a cute guy,” she sheepishly said. “It

was only then that I figured he’s gay pala (and that) he played a joke on me. Grrr! Kainis!”

Some say that the number of April Fools’ Day jokes has waned as the world became modern, but many say that the advancement in technology has actually

given pranksters more tools to make better, more believable ruses.

But for Angeline Rosales, a writer who had been victimized by pranks in the past, says it is better to keep the tradition alive no matter how cruel the jokes could

sometimes turn out. “It’s the day we could have fun—as long as it’s harmless fun,” she said.

In the United States and other Western countries, April Fools’ jokes last the whole day but in some countries, the jokes are sprung only until noon. A prankster

who plays jokes after midday is called an “April Fool.”

According to a children’s custom, anyone who attempts to play a joke past noontime is taunted, thus: April Fool is gone and past, You're the biggest fool at last.

Being an April Fool should still be okay, as long as you have a good laugh at the end of the day.