Sigmarhophobia?

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Sigmarhophobia?
Sunday, 02 28, 2010

My fellow regular at the Kapihan sa Sulo, Fel Maragay of The Manila Standard Today, used this word in his column, thus: “In the midst of this controversy (over the appointment of the next chief justice), judicial watchers see the ‘sigmarhophobia’ permeating the legal front once again. Put on the spot is the Sigma Rho, that powerful fraternity at the University of the Philippines. In the national stage, the Sigma Rhoans are at the forefront of the opposition to Mrs. Arroyo’s appointment of a Puno successor. And many of them are in the innermost sanctum of the Aquino-Roxas campaign.”

Fel went on to mention names of political personalities and members of the Sigma Rho, who have taken the negative side of the proposition that President Gloria Arroyo, whose term ends on June 30, 2010, can validly appoint the successor of Chief Justice Reynato Puno who retires on May 17, 2010.

Sigmarhophobia? I sincerely hope that Fel might have been confused there and had not strung the first two concepts that came to his mind to create a neologism, in the way that “presidentiable” and “fiscalizer” have entered into the linguistic awareness and usage of Filipinos — and only Filipinos for that matter. These words are not present in the dictionary or active vocabulary of other English-speaking people elsewhere. But I digress…

The word — a neologism created in the hope that it will become accepted — must mean an extreme or irrational fear of, or aversion to, the Sigma Rho. Is there anything to be scared or wary about when the Sigma Rho takes a stand?

For a Sigma Rhoan to take one side in a debate over an issue of national importance should not engender fear in any one. Rather, the present state of affairs should augur well for a healthy, sensible and untramelled discussion of the subject at issue.

I have been back for only a short time to be able to gauge where the Sigma Rho is headed in this debate. Concerned over the stirring denunciations by Fel of this fraternity of which I am a member, I sought the wise counsel of the Sigma Rhoans involved in the debate.

These are the facts.

The Sigma Rho does not have a collective stand on the issue of appointment of a successor to Chief Justice Puno. In fact, Sigma Rhoans are not monolithic when it comes to preferences, advocacies and politics. They find themselves at loggerheads with each other many times over different issues.

And like everyone involved in the debate over the proper application of Section 15, Article VII vis-a-vis Section 9, Article VIII of the Constitution, Sigma Rhoans are evenly divided. They have taken opposing views, and the Sigma Rho Council, the steering body on matters affecting the fraternity, has allowed the Sigma Rhoans to “let a hundred thoughts contend.”

Sigma Rhoans who have taken the affirmative side have as much as an equal number among those who espouse the negative side. This is just as well, for Sigma Rhoans are lawyers who pride themselves as steeped in the Constitution. And when the interpretation of any of its provisions becomes a matter of contention, expect these lawyers to take sides, each side devoted to the legal principle, ethic, tenet, canon or creed it holds as right.

Being supercilious is one thing that Sigma Rhoans are not. It is almost second nature for them to be engaged in a debate over the correct application or reading of two apparently conflicting provisions of the Constitution, when it becomes the right thing that should be done at the right time. And considering the political climate, what time could be more right than now?

True, many of those in the negative side are identified with the Aquino-Roxas campaign. What is regrettable is that the collective membership of the fraternity has been labeled the same phobic brush, only because those espousing the negative are more vocal and, as Fel correctly assumes, prefer a fraternity brother, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, to be appointed chief justice by the next president, not by the incumbent president.

Carpio is, naturally, the preferred chief justice of the Sigma Rhoans. But the matter of his appointment, or of anyone else, must be governed by what ultimately will be declared by the Supreme Court as the proper time to make the appointment and by whom, and never at the expense of the right application of provisions of the Constitution. After all, members of the legal profession must, nolens volens, bow to what is the right application of the Constitution as the Supreme Court says it is.

From the time Fel came out with his article, there have been many other columnists coming out with the same tenor, deriding the Sigma Rho for the position taken by some of its members who were speaking only for other lawyers’ organizations they represent, not the Sigma Rho. It is a devilishly neat way of dragging the Sigma Rho into the fray, and in the process impute to it a collective boosterism effort to support Carpio.

Dragging the Sigma Rho into the discussion, and connecting it to a preference for Carpio, is an ingenious approach to muddling the primary issue. It takes away the focus on the debate over the right interpretation of two constitutional provisions.

As of this writing, many issues have been raised against Carpio in an effort to scuttle his chances at being nominated by the JBC, one of these being a complaint filed by one falsely claiming to be a colleague in the Advisory Council of Transparency International. Where these are coming from, and who is coordinating them, is obvious. Carpio can defend himself anytime, and does not need sympathetic Sigma Rhoans to defend him.

No, Fel, there is no such thing as sigmarhophobia. On the other hand, there is hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, or fear of long words, which afflicts me now because I fear the the loss of decency among brothers in the law profession as a result of the ugly debate that has ensued over the nomination and appointment of a chief justice.

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