JDV, foes in make-or-break meet

Opponents of ‘comebacking’ former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. are consolidating their forces in the wake of the forging of a partnership between the De Venecia-led mainstream Lakas and the opposition Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).

De Venecia and his pro-administration rivals will see each other today in a make-or-break meeting intended to iron out their differences.

Deputy Speaker Carlos Padilla (LDP, Nueva Vizcaya), one of the leaders of an anti-De Venecia coalition of seven small political parties, told reporters yesterday that they want the former Speaker to agree to submit himself to a selection process sponsored by the administration People Power Coalition (PPC).

He said the proposed selection process would not include NPC since it is not a PPC member.

De Venecia and his supporters have entered into a partnership with NPC, giving them a clear majority to win the speakership fight. The two groups have been discussing the sharing of committees and other positions. NPC is the second biggest bloc in the House after Lakas.

The former Speaker, however, is still reaching out to his opponents.

His comeback bid is gaining support even among civil society groups. Yesterday, several people’s organizations, including the labor group Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, signed a declaration of support for De Venecia.

Padilla said many PPC members felt they were marginalized by the Lakas-NPC partnership.

He said a PPC-sponsored selection process would avert disunity among President Arroyo’s supporters in the larger chamber of Congress and "prevent the House leadership from being held captive by other groups."

"The combined PPC membership in the House is more than enough to install a PPC Speaker in the 12th Congress," he said.

He added that such process would be one of the things the candidates for Speaker and PPC members will discuss in this afternoon’s make-or-break meeting.

Rep. Joey Salceda (Lakas, Albay), De Venecia’s chief strategist, said the former Speaker’s opponents clearly want him to abandon his partnership with NPC, whose founder and chief financier is businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr.

"We will not do that. We will not turn our back on our allies. But we still can take in others. We have room for them in our own coalition," he said.

This afternoon’s meeting will be held at the Manila Polo Club in Makati and will be presided over jointly by De Venecia, who is Lakas national chairman, and Education Secretary Raul Roco, who is founder of Aksyon Demokratiko.

Roco’s Aksyon is a member of the Lakas-led PPC and the coalition of small political groups opposed to De Venecia. Aksyon has three congressmen-members in the incoming Congress.

Others expected to attend the Makati meeting are Representatives Florencio Abad of Batanes, who is Liberal Party president, and Vicente Sandoval of Palawan, who has also declared his candidacy for the position of Speaker.

De Venecia and Abad are scheduled to have a one-on-one meeting this morning, but yesterday, Abad said he would suggest to De Venecia that they just attend the afternoon meeting.

Supporting the proposed selection process, Abad said "we should have done this from the start."