Getting even

People led by Corazon Aquino denounced the “Hello, Garci” vote-rigging scandal, the fertilizer scam and other anomalies linked to Malacañang, and President Arroyo survived impeachment.

Joey de Venecia denounced corruption in a $329-million national broadband deal and his father got kicked out of the top House post in a war where the ground commanders for the other side were the President’s sons.

We should remember well the political precedents that have been set in the past seven years, because these are going to be repeated, haunting the nation over and over in our perdition.

Remember well, too, those revealing glimpses into the way the majority of our congressmen see the nature of their posts. In the litany of complaints expressed by House members who voted to kick out De Venecia, the overriding theme was, “You didn’t give me what I wanted.”

There were some nuggets amid the congressmen’s nauseating explanations for their votes. Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin said if the chamber’s public image had suffered in the past years, it was because of the De Venecia House’s support for President Arroyo.

Sorsogon Rep. Sonny Escudero, father of the senator, called for an end to the “plastikan” or pretense that Malacañang had no hand in De Venecia’s ouster. There were over a dozen congressmen with family ties to the President, Escudero pointed out, and all voted to give De Venecia the boot.

Everyone’s favorites, of course, were those who simply announced their votes with no explanation.

An explanation was not required, and it would have been enough for De Venecia to find out who plunged the knives in his back.

Anyway, he knows, like all the rest of us, that any reason given in public for his ouster could not have been the whole truth.

His replacement, Prospero Nograles, would have known the real reasons.

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Nograles may not be fully aware that his House is now seen as a Malacañang rubber stamp, where the President’s sons are seen as the real bosses.

The De Venecia House, despite its full cooperation with Malacañang in economic and fiscal legislation, and despite throwing out impeachment efforts against the President three times, could not be seen as a rubber stamp because people believed De Venecia had his own personal agenda which ran against the President’s: her sharing of power, if not outright resignation, in a shift to a parliamentary system where he could become the prime minister.

The bad blood between the two allies in fact started developing at the height of efforts to make the President resign in 2005 over the vote-rigging scandal.

De Venecia’s win-win formula (at least as far as he was concerned) at the time was for the President to dangle to the public Charter change in the near future, and if the situation called for it, to share power or step down in a shift to a parliamentary system.

A seasoned politician, De Venecia can sometimes hear only what he wants to hear. Surely enough people warned him that there was no way Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who believes she has a divine right to rule, would step down or even share power with anyone.

As calls for people power fizzled out and the President regained her political strength, De Venecia’s brilliant idea for saving the queen lost its luster.

Ironically for him, Charter change might finally take off under the Nograles House. No comic people’s initiative this time to get Cha-cha rolling. This is going to be a serious effort, with appropriate focus on economic reforms, but with an eye to allowing Nograles’ capo di tutti cappi to hang on to power beyond 2010.

Stand by for the next episodes.

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By now De Venecia should realize that he is in no position to demand an eye for an eye. His shrillest denunciations aren’t going to bring down the President.

The jeering of his critics in the administration is shared by many non-partisan observers: if he knew of wrongdoing in the administration, why denounce them only when he knew his ouster had been sealed?

But the same was said of Luis “Chavit” Singson when he ratted on Joseph Estrada. The other side of the argument is that disgruntled insiders, especially those who also benefited from anomalous deals, are in the best position to expose the rot. That was what made Singson so effective in bringing down his former bosom buddy.

Such whistleblowers can be used as battering rams against the corrupt, but they won’t be the principal beneficiaries of their disclosures.

De Venecia will be welcomed by the opposition, but he isn’t going to be its leader. Joey de Venecia can expose the rotten ZTE deal, but he can’t be awarded any contract for a government broadband network as a direct result of his disclosure.

The elder De Venecia should be content with the knowledge that information he is sharing can work against those who betrayed him.

He should stop reminding all the Judases what they owe him, and he should stop using the House as his bully pulpit.

Instead, he can share whatever he knows with the proper parties, so they can bring anomalies to the attention of the public and prepare for the eventual prosecution of the crooks.

If De Venecia wants the President to suffer the fate of Erap, a credible vehicle must be found to initiate it. During Erap’s time, that vehicle was then senator Teofisto Guingona Jr. His “I accuse” speech on the Senate floor included information culled from various enemies of Erap.

JDV is no Guingona; he’s more of a Singson. He should keep the sour grapes to a minimum and remember that sound advice: Don’t get mad, get even.

That’s exactly what the President and her sons did to him and his son.