Saturday, February 09, 2008 Libre: De Venecia's fall By Mel Libre Seriously Now
THE ouster of Rep. Jose de Venecia as Speaker of the House of Representative had been rumored for sometime. It took a serious tone when his son, Joey III, implicated First Gentleman Mike Arroyo to the controversial national broadband deal.
At a time when President Gloria Arroyo declared for the nth time a war against corruption in government, the expose must have embarrassed her and the First Family. Though publicly the President announced her support for de Venecia as Speaker of the House, other supporters of the President found a crack in the rock solid relationship of the two stalwarts of the ruling coalition.
De Venecia may have become too comfortable about his claim to the post of speaker despite the surprising challenge during the opening of Fourteenth Congress by Rep. Pablo Garcia, who had his supporters among the President’s men. The longest serving speaker (five times in separate terms) in our country’s history, de Venecia must have relied on his record as the devout defender of the President against the latter’s impeachment attempts.
But he did not know what hit him. Abandoned by most of his colleagues, the man who could have been president, had it not been for Joseph Estrada, delivered a privilege speech that may have damaged the President a bit. He sounded more like a sour grape rather than a statesman.
A political survivor of the highest caliber, de Venecia was in the last Congress prior to Ferdinand Marcos’ declaration of Martial Law. During the Marcos dictatorship, de Venecia re-defined "brain drain" by making overseas foreign work a "heroic" act through his Middle East initiative.
He re-emerged as a politician during the Cory Aquino years as congressman and took the House leadership by forming the Rainbow Coalition for President Fidel Ramos. The leadership of Ramos was able to harness the House in pursuing landmark legislation that made the Philippines a darling of foreign investment.
Maybe, just maybe, de Venecia could have been the best person to pursue further groundwork put in place by Ramos. But it was not meant to be.
His return as speaker after Manuel Villar went on to become senator was filled with drama--–from Estrada’s impeachment to junking moves to oust Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. And when the opposition were bent on toppling the Arroyo presidency, he was there as vanguard in Congress.
It was with much disgust that President Arroyo abandoned him. "It pains me grievously to hurt the President and to hurt the First Family because I have invested so much more than any of you in this chamber to help the President become vice president, become President.”
But then de Venecia was merely a victim of the system that he thrived on. "Utang nä loob" and "padrino" contributed to his rise as well as his fall. He could have done better had he pursued an "ideology-based" politics that seemed to be what Lakas-NUCD preaches.
A traditional politician (or "trapo" for short), de Venecia just got beaten in the game that he thought he had mastered. What happened to Sunshine Joe was bound to happen. So long as the system remains, Speaker Prospero Nograles and others who will sit on the throne in the future will likely be waylaid and forgotten.
