Louie Blake Saile Sarmiento, author

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF PHILIPPINE  FRATERNITIES By Louie Blake S. Sarmiento Master of Arts in Industrial/Organizational Psychology; Juris Doctor Introduction        In all times and among all nations which have reached a sufficient level of cultural development, there have always been fraternal associations formed for higher purposes. The origin of fraternity, as a principle, is as old as humankind. Humans always have that natural desire to associate with each other for a common purpose – either for social, philosophical, political, religious, charitable, mutual-benefit, or business purposes. Fraternities or so-called brotherhoods existed since the early civilizations, first among sworn kinsmen, Roman  collegias , Orders of Knighthood, craft guilds, and burial clubs. Although ordinary men did not yet have a recognized “right to association” during the days of monarchy, fraternity as an idea existed in so-called ‘secret societies’ or ‘secret brotherhoods’- where the working class, middl