REVIVAL OF ODD FELLOWS PHILIPPINES - A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT
THE REVIVAL OF ODD FELLOWS PHILIPPINES 12 YEARS AGO BEGAN AS A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT By Louie Blake S. Sarmiento, M.A., J.D. Believe it or not, the revival of Odd Fellows Philippines began as a psycho-social experiment. The aim was “ to help change the negative public image of fraternities in the country .” From the 1970’s up to the early 2000’s, fraternities and sororities in the country have earned a bad or tainted public reputation as a result of several deaths due to hazing, frat-related violence such as “frat-wars”, drug abuse and alcoholism, machismo and date or gang-rapes, etc. There already came a point when there is but a very thin difference between fraternities and gangs. Moreover, women and other genders were usually rejected from the membership. This heightened sense of masculinity, if not corrected, may be a training ground for other forms of gender-related discrimination and violence in the household, workplace and society in general. Many fraternal organ