Bona fide text
Let the former Speaker speak
It's over. Definitely over. The good relationship between President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and ousted Speaker Jose de Venecia has come to an end.
The year of the earth rat witnessed how De Venecia turned to be an opposition after he has been voted out as speaker early morning of February 5.
Erstwhile Speaker De Venecia lost his position in a vote of 174 against 35, with 16 abstentions.
He anticipated this thing to happen. He is not dim-witted not to feel the cold treatment he got from Malacañang these past few days. The scenario last Tuesday was expected reality of the former speaker.
De Venecia even accused Malacañang of organizing actions to remove him as speaker as stated in his 59-minute impassioned speech.
I agree to him saying that he was there to support PGMA in most of her political undertakings. As I've seen him on television saying "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 President become Vice President, become President…" It all started when his son Joey de Venecia III spoke in public months ago about the alleged bribe offers in connection with a contract to put up a multi-million dollar national broadband network which dragged the name of first gentleman Mike Arroyo.
Would this mean that the Malacañang orchestrated De Venecia's case? Even the sons of PGMA, Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo and Camarines Sur Rep. Dato Arroyo mentioned that their mom doesn't even know about the sudden oust of the speaker, Filipinos are smart enough to smell that there is something "fishy" going on.
But sad to say, the privileged speech of De Venecia sounds sour graping for some of the Filipinos. He even disclosed in his speech that he has the knowledge of the alleged attempts to tamper with the 2004 elections but it was just in passing. And here is the question: Why wait for four years to speak out? Though not yet too late but do you think he is not giving hanging items for the media and for the Filipino people to crave for his revelations? That would be the next highlight of the political scenes in the days to come.
I believe in his courage to face the reality that he is no longer the speaker of the House of Representatives. I know this is not the end of everything. This is just the declaration of war against the President, members of her family and close associates. Clearly he states, "I will join the opposition to denounce corruption in this administration. I will join the battle against corruption."
As I've said, not yet too late. Not yet too late to speak the truth. However, the poor Filipinos once again are put in a muddled situation. He was once part of the administration and for some, what happened to the good years of having good political relationships with PGMA? He just played mute witness? Or the privilege speech is purely his desperate moves to entice the media and the Filipino people for more revelations?
Goodbye Speaker De Venecia but hello for more controversial political issues on the go.