PDO::PARAM for dates?

When writing a date in an SQL query, you are writing it as a string; you have to do the same with prepared statements, and use PDO::PARAM_STR, like you did in the portion of code you proposed.

And for the "timestamp", if by "timestamp" you mean:

• The MySQL timestamp data-type: it's the same, you'll pass it as a string
• The PHP Unix timestamp, which is an integer: you'll pass it an int.

Simply creating the date using php date function should fix this issue for you.

$handle->execute(array(":date"=>date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime($date)), PDO::PARAM_STR));

Edit: Please note though, that strtotime (http://php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php) can't handle every kind of date formats.

Nope. Treat date as a string.