prova così:
Codice PHP:
$data '12-01-2006';
list(
$day,$month,$year) = explode('-',$data);
$dataCheck date('Y-m-d',mktime(0,0,0,$month,$day,$year));
$today date('Y-m-d');

if(
$dataCheck $today)
 echo 
"passata";
else 
echo 
"non ancora passata"
ciao