Sigma Rho’s sight lines

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Sigma Rho’s sight lines
Sunday, 11 29, 2009

The Sigma Rho Fraternity of the UP College of Law turns 70 today.

Formally recognized in 1939 by the University of the Philippines, the Sigma Rho is the fraternal organization of those associated for a common purpose and interest, united despite varied backgrounds and regardless of individual occupations, passions and tastes.

The Sigma Rho must have beckoned to the UP student at the verge of manhood with the promise of initiation ceremonies shrouded in mystery, the macho challenge of undergoing hazing, parties, living college life to the fullest, meeting sorority sisters in the Delta Lambda Sigma, and indulging in exuberant adventures that included the occasional “rumble” with groups out to make a name for themselves as having confronted the Sigma Rho.

And experience these promises the young Sigma Rhoan did. Sometimes in a degree that went a little too much that it could only be ascribed to the giddy energy and excitement of the young and the restless.

In the light of some news that have given fraternities an unsavory and dubious reputation in recent years, it would be downright hypocritical to declare that no Sigma Rhoan has ever been called to the carpet of the fraternity table for a violation of its values and ideals.

But the Sigma Rhoans - and they are a multitude - have never turned their backs at the golden opportunity to become gentlemen scholars and warriors, leaders in the community who excel in their academic studies and earn the respect of everyone. By and large, the members of the Sigma Rho have often been campus leaders, involved in student government, honor societies and other organizations. They are the students who have embraced the chance to become leaders of the country.

The Sigma Rho is not only a fraternity. It is a force.

Scan the political landscape. Sigma Rho members are everywhere – be it in the administration or in the opposition to it. Or in the legislature. Or in the judiciary.

Go to the military and the police. Or, on the other side of the fence, to groups which espouse an ideology against whom the military and the police are engaged in military and police action. Then look at those who sit at the negotiating tables. You will see Sigma Rhoans on either side and, as likely as not, in the middle.

Business and industry is not spared the presence of the Sigma Rhoans. They assume the forms of titans of property development, banking and insurance, transportation, telecommunications….

The arts, journalism, science and medicine, sports, and every conceivable field of activity have Sigma Rhoans for their achievers and leaders.

And go international. A Sigma Rhoan would in all probability be managing population, fighting poverty, handling climate change, waging war on corruption, or spreading the tenets of democratic governance.

For all these Sigma Rho stalwarts who have distinguished themselves — not only in the field of Rule of Law and Justice, where Sigma Rhoans abound — the fraternity has all the reasons not to exist aimlessly. Neither must it exist for petty, narrow and selfish reasons. It is meant to serve the nation and places beyond its borders.

The Sigma Rho does not exist as an instrument to further the selfish ambitions of glory-seeking individuals or as a channel of parvenus and glamour-hungry upstarts. These rogues are filtered out by Sigma Rho’s rigorous requirements for membership. Those who will soon leave the groves of academe are nurtured by an alumni council that sees to the observance of the hierarchy of loyalty and code of action of the fraternity.

The Sigma Rho is a fraternity of destiny. History has ordained it for leadership and infused it by reason of its inseparable antecedents with ideological, cultural, and political missions that will inevitably find cyclical fulfillment in time and space.

As an organization drawing its life from the Fatherland and recognition from UP, its missions must perforce be fundamentally intertwined with the warp and woof of the principles declared by the Constitution and enshrined by the University. Thus, the Sigma Rho possesses a basic commitment to the ideals and principles of liberalism, libertarianism, Filipinism, and culture.

By the inevitability of logical flow, it is the supreme duty of every Sigma Rhoan to forge the links that will ensure the continuum of the liberal, libertarian, Filipinistic, scholarly, and cultural traditions of the Fatherland and the University.

These are the ends toward which the Sigma Rho moves, to realize its implacable destiny and attain the perfection of its collective will and personality.

These are the lofty thoughts that have been inculcated in the mind of every Sigma Rhoan on the day he took his fraternal oath.

Tonight, the Sigma Rho will celebrate the end of its platinum year of existence, and its members will start counting the next equally successful 70 years of existence of a fraternity that has made its mark.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile ’52, currently embodying the success and resilience of the Sigma Rho, will deliver the State of the Sigma Rho at the fraternity ball tonight at the Sofitel Plaza Hotel. The May 2010 presidential elections will most likely take center stage, where Sigma Rhoans will be, as usual, the key players. Consider: Enrile will be on the side of former President Joseph Estrada; former Senate President Frank Drilon ’66, with Noynoy Aquino; former Congressman Rolex Suplico ’84, with Manny Villar; former Congressman Ruy Lopez ’81, with Gibo Teodoro; and, former Senate President Ed Angara ’52, president of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino which has already elected two presidents of the country since 1987, pushing the vice-presidential bid of Loren Legarda.

The movers and shakers of the land - enthused with the vivacity, the joie de vivre, the verve, the energy to head out to divergent terrains - will take stock of what happened and will plan again for the next engagement, always strong in will, to strive, to seek the right.

Seekers of the Right: that’s what Sigma Rhoans are, and that includes me (since 1971). Angara has never failed to remind his brothers: “As Seekers of the Right, you will never go far from leading and fighting for that kind of life if you put country above self, a virtue that is enshrined in our Hierarchy of Loyalty.”

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There’s a troubled country out there and the Sigma Rho can help find a balm for what ails it, and bolster its standing as a moral fraternity with all those who in the past and now have been in the service of the country.

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