De Venecia in NY to pitch for global Christian-Muslim partnership

Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. flew yesterday to New York City to make a pitch for global Christian-Muslim partnership that he said could minimize violence in many parts of the world.

De Venecia will be in New York for less than 12 hours to speak before an inter-religious forum. He will fly back to Manila in time for Monday’s resumption of deliberations on the proposed P781-billion 2002 national budget.

Before leaving, De Venecia said he and other House leaders will do all they can to muster a quorum next week and to approve the budget on Thursday before Congress goes on a two-week recess.

In New York, De Venecia will join a group of speakers that include former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Jihan Sadat, widow of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat who was assassinated in 1979 by Muslim extremists after his historic peace mission to Israel.

Also addressing the conference is Oscar Arias, the former Costa Rican president who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in ending the Nicaraguan civil war.

In his speech, De Venecia is expected to reiterate the country’s full support for the United States-led global campaign to fight terrorism.

He said the fight is not against Islam "but against pockets of organized terror."

"There is no clash of civilizations, although misguided and extremist elements from both sides of the cultural divide would make it appear to be so," he said.

The Speaker is national chairman of the ruling Lakas-NUCD-UMDP, a merger among Lakas, National Union of Christian Democrats and United Muslim Democrats of the Philippines.

Last month, he flew to Taipei to preside over the first Christian-Buddhist dialogue.

A month before that, he was in Bangkok for a parliamentary conference.

Before boarding his US flight, De Venecia saw President Arroyo off for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shanghai, China.

He said the biggest challenge to Asia-Pacific leaders, including US President George W. Bush, "is to end the jitters, bring about calm in the capitals of the world, and put in place a program to rapidly rebuild the world’s economies." – Jess Diaz