De Venecia bent on speakership comeback

Former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., who is running virtually unopposed in Pangasinan’s fourth congressional district, is bent on returning to the House of Representatives as its boss.

De Venecia has met with former Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora at the former’s Dagupan City residence presumably to discuss the speakership.

Zamora, who is seeking his old congressional seat in the lone district of San Juan, is also interested in the top House post.

De Venecia told reporters over the weekend in Dagupan City, where he hosted a lunch for senatorial candidates of the administration People Power Coalition (PPC), that he and Zamora did not discuss any "serious political matter."

"He just dropped by. But I suggested to him that we should support a common candidate for Speaker," he said.

However, he said the common candidate should come from the ranks of the ruling coalition.

De Venecia hopes to eventually win the endorsement of President Arroyo in his quest for the speakership, the fourth highest post in the land.

He was Lakas-NUCD’s presidential candidate in the 1998 elections but lost to then Vice President Joseph Estrada.

After the elections, he brokered a government of national unity with Estrada.

The result of his initiative was the appointment of his winning vice presidential running mate, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as secretary of social welfare and development.

De Venecia will need all the support he can get to overcome opposition from young neophyte and second-term congressmen who will comprise the majority of the incoming members of the House, and defeat Tarlac Rep. Gilberto Teodoro Jr. in the fight for the speakership.

Teodoro, a young Harvard law graduate and Bar topnotcher, is banking on the support of these first- and second-term congressmen. He belongs to the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) of businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., who is his uncle.

Shortly after President Arroyo assumed office in January, some members of the lawmakers’ generation next resented De Venecia’s alleged meddling in the affairs of the House.

The former Speaker had tried to persuade Lakas congressmen into keeping then Speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella of the NPC, who was eventually replaced by then Minority Leader Feliciano Belmonte Jr. (Lakas, Quezon City). – Jess Diaz