Jose de Venecia is the man of the hour. The speaker of the 14th Congress, de Venecia is the father of ZTE whistleblower Joey de Venecia. His son apparently has been the redeeming value of the epitomy of Philippine traditional politics and it seems the man is steadfast in pursuing a different path, marching to a different drum.
De Venecia heads the 239 member House of Representatives. He is on his last third term and with 115 new termers representing 48% of the total membership, the Speaker may just be molding a different legacy totally different from the political brand he has been known for. When Congress resumes its session on November 5, all eyes and ears will be in the House of Representatives because of several flash points: 1) the compliant filed by Atty. Pulido against the Speaker before the Ethics Committee headed by Rep. Eleandro Madrona (Lone Dist-Lakas, Romblon) ; 2) the impeachment complaint filed by the same Atty. Pulido against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo which was endorsed by Rep. Eggy San Luis (4th Dist-Ind, Laguna) and the possibility of amending the same; 3) the resolution filed by Rep. Teddy Casino (PL-Bayan Muna) on the purported bribery of members of the House by Malacanang, and 4) the possibility of declaring all seats vacant thus removing Speaker de Venecia.
A senior member of the House occupying a leadership position has said that the removal of Speaker de Venecia could lead to the downfall of Arroyo may have some ring to it considering that the Speaker has defended the fortress three times; two impeachments and rallying the faithful in a show of force together with former President Fidel V. Ramos at the hieght of the resignations by Arroyo's official family (Hyatt 10).
Today De Venecia talks about a "moral revolution." One wonders why the belated clarion call when all along his name has always been whispered in big ticket deals. In his "An Appeal to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo," the Speaker asked that the president use the vast powers of the presidency to lead a moral revolution in our public life. De Venecia described the political system as "hopelessly corrupt, morally tainted and beyond saving" and pointed to a model ("do what Lee Kuan Yew did in Singapore: cleanse national society of corruption") further quoting Proverbs 14:34, "righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people."
De Venecia has called for the "creation of a high-level Council on Moral Reform and National Renewal." In this call, he cited three thematic issues: "politically, the key problem is corruption; economically, it is slow and highly uneven gowth; socially, it is mass poverty passed down from generation to generation." The Speaker listed 13 principal tasks under political, 8 under economic and 9 under social; promising further that the House will do its share of House cleaning, such as: "ridding the House of undesirable practices by subjecting dusbursements of public money to the strictest scrutiny, all items in teh CDF be itemized in a line budget publicized in full transparency and subjected to public bidding, using the electronic-procurment law, institutionalize district-wide development planning through formal "town-hall meetings" to determine the choice of projects for public financing."
Somehow, such effort should be a welcome development. But as everybody knows, one cant get much action done in the last two minutes of any administration, political will and everything. But if Speaker de Venecia can institute reform in his sphere of influence -- the House of Representatives -- and spearheads the passage of the Freedom of Information Act, Fiscal Responsibility Act and I will add one more measure that surely will be supported, the Legislative Reorganization and Reform Act, then indeed there is meaning to what the Speaker once said: "only the event will teach us in its hour."
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