MANILA, Philippines – Former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. has been offered the post of “president emeritus” of the ruling Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats as calls for him to leave the party continue.
Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, Lakas-CMD secretary general, said the offer was made on two occasions the past two weeks.
He said he met with De Venecia in his house in Makati City and suggested that he accept the post.
De Venecia is currently Lakas-CMD president, but the situation became tenuous after he openly attacked Mrs. Arroyo on various issues, including the scrapped $329-million national broadband network deal.
He also blamed the President and members of the First Family for his ouster as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Zubiri did not say how the offer came about, but said Mrs. Arroyo knows and “was okay about it.”
They also met with former President Fidel Ramos, Lakas-CMD chairman emeritus, last Wednesday wherein other party officials, including Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Gabriel Claudio, and Ray Roquero, the party’s executive director, were present.
The meeting at Mr. Ramos’ office in Makati came on the day De Venecia left for New York for a long-scheduled meeting with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“There is really a group that wants him out,” Zubiri told The STAR, adding that it would not be good to remove De Venecia from the party, being one of the founders of Lakas-CMD in 1992 led by Ramos.
He said Ramos also suggested to De Venecia that he accept the offer ahead of the convention of the national directorate to be led by Mrs. Arroyo, the party’s national chairwoman, before the end of the month. De Venecia, however, was non-committal.
Zubiri said the national directorate meeting was initially scheduled next week where De Venecia’s new post was to be announced, but the former speaker strongly objected to holding it without him and threatened to bring the matter before the Supreme Court to secure a temporary restraining order.
Ermita and Roquero, in separate interviews, said it was not right that De Venecia kept on attacking the President while he holds a post in the party.
Zubiri said the party leadership does not want a split as what befell the Liberal Party so they moved the meeting to a still unspecified date later this month.
Lawyer Raul Lambino, Lakas deputy secretary general, said “it will be much like the Liberal Party splitting into the Drilon and Atienza factions.”
He said the assembly is a bigger body whose composition, in addition to members of the directorate, includes regional, provincial, city, and municipal party officers.
“Under our constitution and bylaws, it is the party president who can convene the national assembly. And he can do that only once every two years to promote stability in the party’s leadership,” he said. – Paolo Romero, Jess Diaz