In the 2nd semester of 1963 – 64, a young engineering student from UP Diliman cross-enrolled in UPLB. There, he witnessed a gang of students from another regional group picking on a fellow Ilocano. The young Constante Tesoro then gathered all the Ilocanos at the YMCA Dormitory, where he resided, narrated to them the bullying he had witnessed, and expressed his intention to create an organization of Ilocanos.

The news spread throughout the Ilocano community in UPLB. And on Saturday of the same week, around 20 or so Ilocanos attended a meeting in a bamboo grove behind the YMCA Dorm. The group formalized the organization, elected officers, and named itself The Grand Knights of the Republic. The members called themselves “Grand Masters”. The officers were designated the titles of “Grand Ace” (President), “Grand King” (Vice President), “Grand Jack” (Secretary), “Grand Exchequer” (Treasurer), “Grand Chequer” (Auditor), “Grand Entrepreneur” (Business Manager), “Grand Minstrel” (PRO), and “Grand Marshall” (Sergeant-at-Arms).

The following school year, Constante Tesoro left UPLB and returned to UP Diliman to complete his engineering curriculum. The remaining members of the Grand Knights of the Republic opted to transform the organization into a Greek-letter fraternity. They took the initials of Grand Knights of the Republic and named the new organization the Gamma Kappa Rho Fraternity. They also added the suffix “Kappa” to the official titles. The officers, then were designated as “Grand Ace Kappa”, “Grand King Kappa”, “Grand Jack Kappa”, etc. The members did not refer to each other as “brods”, the way we do now. When the fraternity was formed, members called each other “brodie”.

There is a gentleman’s code among fraternities that a person can be a member of only one Greek-letter organization. Consequently, a few of the current brodies at that time had no choice but to renounce their membership with the Gamma Kappa Rho Fraternity because they were already members of other fraternities.

On September 23, 1964, after fulfilling all requirements, the Gamma Kappa Rho Fraternity was officially registered with the Student Organizations and Activities Division of the Office of Student Affairs (SOAD-OSA) of UPLB and recognized as one of the campus organizations. It is for this reason that this is officially regarded as our fraternity’s official foundation date.

The Charter Members of the Gamma Kappa Rho were:

Brod Zak Sabado was the first Grand Ace Kappa of the first Gamma Kappa Rho Fraternity Chapter at the UPLB College of Agriculture.

Constante Tesoro returned to UPLB once more in 1965 to complete his studies and earn his undergraduate degree in Agricultural Engineering. He later worked as a professor at the Department of Agricultural Engineering in UPLB, and eventually served as a faculty adviser for the fraternity.

After the Gamma Kappa Rho gained official recognition in 1964, the charter members proceeded to conceptualize a counterpart sorority, the Sisterhood of Grand Ladies of the Republic, which took the Greek appellation Sigma Gamma Lambda. The original “brodies” paved the way and fulfilled all the requirements for the sorority to also be officially recognized by the university.

The brodies created the original sorority seal, still used to this day. They had planned and anticipated the sorority to be officially founded in 1965, and this reflects in the year indicated in the Sigma Gamma Lambda seal. Unfortunately, things did not go according to plan and the sisterhood was not started until the following year, 1966. It was automatically recognized by the University as the partner sorority of the Gamma Kappa Rho fraternity. Curiously, no one has ever bothered to change the date on the sorority’s seal. To this day it says “1965”.

The Charter members were called “Grand Ladies”. They were:

Membership in both the fraternity and sorority surged shortly thereafter. The brodies and sisters were able to recruit many Ilocano students enrolled in the UP College of Forestry (CF) in 1967. This upsurge made it possible to create a second Chapter of the Gamma Kappa Rho Fraternity in CF. The pioneer members of the CF Chapter were:

1. Wilfredo Caluya

2. Marcelino Pages

3. Noe Velasco (deceased)

4. Guillermo Yadao

By this time, several Commanderies had also been established in different universities and colleges around the country. In 1968, the UPLB Commandery organized a national constitutional convention. Representatives from the following Commanderies participated in the event, which took place in the UPLB Auditorium.

• Cabanatuan Institute – 5 representatives

• Central Luzon State University – 3 representatives

• Gregorio Araneta University Foundation – 3 representatives

• Phil College of Criminology – 5 representatives

• UPLB Commandery – 15 to 20 representatives

The first constitutional convention of the Gamma Kappa Rho Fraternity was organized by UPLB Commandery and was held at the UPLB auditorium. This was attended by Commanderies from MLQU, PCC, GAUF, MSAC, UPang, CLEC, CLSU, and different schools from Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte and in Visayas and Mindanao Chapters.

The constitution and by-laws, creed, song, password (Whistle), and set of officers were reviewed, ratified and adopted to be uniform in all Commanderies and that the year 1964 was unanimously adopted as the founding year of the Gamma Kappa Rho Fraternity.

The approved and ratified constitution and by-laws have since been recognized as the official document covering the Gamma Kappa Rho Fraternity since.