DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Sigma Rho
Sunday, 12 07, 2003
All Sigma Rhoans read the Tribune, if only to criticize what two of their members – me and Ayk Señeres on the other page – have to say or leave best unsaid but inferred in our columns. So, there’s a fair chance that our publisher will not mind printing this esoteric piece in full on the Sigma Rho Fraternity, as we digress today from politics and political entertainment.
Where and how often can you see Edgardo Angara and Franklin Drilon sharing the same table without discussing the heavy concerns of the nation and the Senate that divide them more often than never as before? Or, where can you find Johnny Enrile and Raffy Baylosis passionately reminiscing – sans the rancor expected of people who found themselves at opposite sides during the turbulent days of the First Quarter Storm in the 1970s – with each one insisting that the nation would be better off under one’s system than the other’s? Where can you savor a free performance of Edru Abraham and his troupe of ethnic musicians, one that anyone else will have to die for a ticket under normal times? And where else can you expect to see the lawyers’ lawyer, the venerable Tony Meer, hold colleagues in rapt attention as he dishes out enlightening insights on the state of the Judiciary and the legal profession, and the simple ecstasies of being an octogenarian who has not lost the power to cock the gun and pull the trigger?
Where, indeed, but only at the annual Christmas party of the Sigma Rho. It was held last Thursday at Forbes Park. Host Boy Reyno was effusive as he welcomed everyone to his “meteoric” garden,” a vast expanse that he modestly proclaims as the physical manifestation of his soaring law practice. On that night, the meteors and stars of the Sigma Rho firmament, lawyers and achievers in various other fields, were visibly apparent but their luminance nevertheless did not dim the brilliance of its lesser stars.
Batas Mauricio and his favorite brod, Sal Panelo, were there; the two had squared off in the celebrated case involving Korina Sanchez and her maid. The fact that Batas, together with Franck Chavez, is running for senator under presidential wannabe Roco did not deter them from exchanging banter with Rolex Suplico, who is heavily on the side of the Lacson campaign, or Ruy Lopez who is out and out for FPJ.
Justice Secretary Simeon Datumanong for once was not discussing the Kuratong Baleleng case. He was regaling the brods about how Oca Garcia, Gabby Enriquez and Kenny Tantuico are doing the fraternity proud at the Justice department. Justice Danny Pine was not loquacious about cases either; rather, he was proudly ecstatic of how he and Nonong Calanog have started a tradition by lording it over the Philippine Judges’ Association, a tradition that they are quite sure its newly-elected president, Judge Romy Barza, will carry on.
In between tipples of their favored spirits, Sigma Rhoans aspiring for the Judiciary gravitated toward Justice Jay Castro of the JBC. And amid the bonhomie and glad-handing, Justice Ernie Acosta of the CTA found himself busy fending off the earnest attempts of many tēte-à- tēte with him, hopeful that the conversation might casually lead to their tax cases. Many were looking for Sonny Marcelo that night; he wisely begged off, but Vic Fernandez was there.
Boy Lazatin was insisting that night (I swear, he wasn’t drunk like Sonny Hong) that the Sigma Rho has been in existence since time immemorial, but it made better sense to count the 65 years since 12 young men seeking everything that is right formally established the Sigma Rho in the UP College of Law, and to enumerate the extent of its achievements since that time: Four Senate presidents, senators, congressmen, two Chief Justices, justices of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals and the Sandiganbayan, Cabinet secretaries, men in the establishment, leaders in the underground military, achievers in the arts, pillars of business and industry.
Its raison d’etre proudly states that the Sigma Rho is a force, a campus force and a national force. For this reason, it must never exist aimlessly. Neither must it exist for petty, narrow and selfish reasons. Nor must it exist as an
The Sigma Rho is a fraternity of destiny. History has ordained it for leadership and has infused it with ideological, cultural and political missions that will inevitably find cyclical fulfillment in the time and space of history.
As an organization drawing its life from the fatherland and recognition from the University of the Philippines, its mission must be fundamentally intertwined with the warp and woof of the principles declared by the Constitution and enshrined by the University. By the inevitability of logical flow, it is therefore the supreme duty of the Sigma Rho to forge the links that will ensure the continuum in the historical flow of liberal, libertarian, Filipinistic, scholarly and cultural traditions. These must be the ends toward which the Sigma Rho fraternity must move and direct all its time and energies, to realize its implacable destiny and to attain the perfection of its collective will and personality.
These lofty thoughts remained unarticulated on that Thursday night – they need not have to be; they had been inculcated in the mind of every Sigma Rhoan on the day he took his fraternal oath. All that mattered that night was the warm pleasure of camaraderie, where the affairs of the State were sidelined. There was nostalgia in the air; reminiscences of the heady and reckless days of college life came pouring in as the night grew deeper until the Rolex watch of Louie Liwanag reminded them that it was 3 a.m. and, like it or not, it was time to go. The morrow was another day, but the Sigma Rho is forever. There’s a troubled country out there and the Sigma Rho can help find a balm for what ails it.
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