Editing Sigma Kappa Pi Fraternity (section)

==History==



During the early years of Marcos' first term, the Philippines was doing fine as manifested by the good performance of the economy. Or so it seemed.

The Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines was normally festive. Beatles and Motown records were continuously played, as they were the hits then. The only thing that disturbed the students from reading Gregorio F. Zaide's history books were complaints about terror Professors, dilapidated comfort rooms, inadequate library materials, water shortage in the campus and busted lights in the classrooms.

Rumbles and traditional fraternity balls characterized fraternity life. Fraternity men, dashing in their coats and tuxedos, were always ready to shower their muses with expensive flowers in frequently held balls. The campus was a constant battlefield as each fraternity aspired to emerge victorious in every encounter. Among the existing fraternities then, it was almost always traditional - a race for glory, glamour and supremacy.

However, outside the country, something was brewing that shall later forever be etched in history. Sweeping across the globe were liberation movements out to challenge US hegemony and imperialism. People of Asia, Africa and South America wanted emancipation from the bondage of political and economic oppression.

The Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) was America's last line of defense against a growing tide of global revolution. People in colonized countries wanted to free themselves from foreign domination to seek their own destiny. Not long after, the Vietnam War escalated.

For the Americans, retreat meant humiliation, and advancement, destruction. To lose was never an option. Weapons of modern technology proved futile against Vietnamese guerilla warfare. The war was proving too costly to sustain. And their involvement was soon becoming a moral dilemma, for people back in the US were already trying to question what the war was all about. Thereafter anti-war sentiments gained momentum as more and more street demonstrations protesting the Vietnam War were held in major cities all across the US.

West Coast university campuses became venues of progressive discussions and mobilizations. Teenagers grew their hair long to protest the compulsory drafting in the military service and militant African Americans formed the Black Panther. Freedom of speech was demanded amidst songs of freedom and peace.

All of these developments were to have a chilling effect on the Philippines. Students coming home after scholarship abroad brought with them progressive ideas. The students began questioning reality. Are we really well off? Why do we complain about trivial matters such as dilapidated comfort rooms when the Vietnamese are already giving their lives for the nobler cause of genuine freedom and independence?

Hence these dictate the tempo of the late 1960's. It was time of questioning, a time of action, a time of change. It was the students, brandishing progressive ideas like swords of steel, challenging the dragon that was the root of society's evils. Bonding together, they shook the very foundations of Philippine realm.

Awakening dawned through discussions in campus. Talks with the masses, the peasant and the workers gave the answer to their questions. Soon, the exploitation without a face was unmasked. Feudal factors tied the masses to poverty and oppression. The enemy became known - US imperialism.

Guided by Mao's "Red Book" and Lenin's "What is to be done?" students started organizing themselves. Remnants of the old revolutionary movement, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) reassessed. In 1964, Kabataang Makabayan (KM) was founded to serve as an organization for fanning the UP students’ political and intellectual ferment.

Among the founding members of the KM was Luzvimindo Timbang David. One day, an acquaintance suggested putting up a fraternity to support the growing movement in the campus. This noble endeavor was realized in the summer of 1968 when a group of more than twenty UP students built foundations of a new fraternity. It was their desire for a stronger and more kindred bond of political unity that they sought to intervene the purpose of and action of social ideals with the camaraderie and integrity found in a brotherhood.

The fraternity envisioned was to be different from the existing ones. It was a nationalist, service-oriented, counter-institution brotherhood that was to bind Filipinos from all concerns of the Philippines.

Doroteo Cubacub Abaya Jr., a member of Crux Anzata (organization of martial arts practitioners), one among twenty students, devised the measures to determine who will be the master founders. These included hiking, swimming and many physical activities. Soon, the group was trimmed down to just five: Doroteo "Doti" Cubacub Abaya, Luzvimindo Timbang David, Joaquin "Jack" Manego Gan, Alfredo "Fred" Dela Cruz Lansangan and Willam "Willy" Yao.

And on the 1st of September 1968, in a sugarcane field in Pampanga near the Abacan River, the Sigma Kappa Pi Fraternity was born 
amidst the turmoil of the times. Among the five left, William Yao unfortunately missed this historic event due to bad weather.

1969 was a silent year for the fraternity as it was a time for recruitment and a time to strengthen the bond between and among the members. Manny Manuel and Ding Baluyot, along with other new brods, helped the master founders lay the grounds for the fraternity's take-off.

The early 1970's was a time to lead. Fraternity members are in the forefront of student demonstrations against growing social injustices, graft and corruption in the government and other issues that were important to the students and to the Filipino people in general. By then there was a growing dissatisfaction among the people with the incumbent administration. Mobilizations formed part of the neophyte process.

When Martial Law was declared on September 21, 1972 by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 1081, it disbanded most of the political organizations and forced the remaining hardy few to go underground. As a consequence and in wanting to serve the people better, Mindo left the fraternity and went underground. Doti, along with Rey Mendoza and other brods, went as far as Mindanao, penetrating the plantations of Transnational Corporations (DOLE, Standard Fruit Company) to organize farmers. Brod Ed Aquino became the fraternity's first martyr when he willingly gave up his life fighting for the people's cause. One by one, many of the brods active in the protest movement were arrested. Jack eventually became a doctor while Fred tried his luck in US. Those who were left continued to fight.