Proper escaping for char(3) string, or PHP at fault, or me at fault?

All,

I have a char(3) column that has occasional values of this:
(V)

In a PHP-called nested query I've a line something like:
select * from tableA where  = any (select date from tableA where void !
= '(V)') group by date order by record

This is throwing a query error in the log that blames the parens but
my efforts to properly escape them with backslashes or "E" doesn't
help. So perhaps this is an error in my PHP, and I'll deal with that,
but in the SQL portion shouldn't '\(V\)' do the trick? Or is it now
'E(VE)'?

thanks,

r