The night Congress made me dumb

I had never felt so dumb in my whole life than in the hours bridging the evening of Monday and the dawn of Tuesday. Probably because I just came from a marathon three-hour discussion on Private International Law that my mind refused to labor further. I could not decipher what was taking place in the august halls of congress. On my tv screen were the distinguished members of the House of Representatives stating their individual stand on the issue of whether or not to strip Speaker Jose de Venecia of that exalted political position. Was it a mental block that none of them expressed the reason which I thought predicated what was unfolding? Oh, I was simply lost!

The months leading to the eventual ouster of Speaker de Venecia from a position he held for so long I thought he had a title to it, gave a preview of what was coming. His successor, Speaker Prospero Nograles of Davao, was, without taking any luster from impressive credentials, just more of a beneficiary than a major player. True, he was a leading profile in Congress before his rise to the speakership but the motivation of the house mutiny was not his brilliance. Rather it was a fall out of the abortive ZTE deal.

The death knell of de Venecia's hold on the congressional diadem rang when his son, Joey, spoke what, to me, was a deadly combination of truth and indignation. Testifying before a Senate inquiry, the young de Venecia did not blink his eye when he said that the First Gentleman, meaning the husband of Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, told him to "back off". Unless it was the truth, Joey was a fool to accuse the presidential hubby of doing what was legally prohibited.

Joey was angry that he was barred from participating in a business transaction with the government forgetting that he, in all likelihood, had the same legal restraints that would have disallowed the likes to the first gentleman. His anger was aggravated by his realization that the husband of the president, instead of setting the moral example of restraint, seemed to use the full weight of his influence in order to corner the multi billion peso deal.

The first gentleman, of course, denied Joey's claims. How could he tell the speaker's son to back off when the said expression was not even in his vocabulary? But, the refutation he offered could not prevent the investigation set in motion by the damning word of Joey. Thus, in the face of the relevant testimony of such other credible witness as former NEDA head Romulo Neri which could lead us to conclude that corruption of a billion peso proportion was shaping up, the eventual act of Malacañang cancelling the deal supplied the very kind of perception of graft it purported to ward off.

When news broke that two of the president's children, both Members of the House of Representatives, actively pursued the scalp of Speaker de Venecia, I simply thought it was a way of coming back at the speaker. (I would not want to use the word vengeance).To hide their obvious intention, the two Arroyo Congressmen, working thru a phalanx of eager peers, sought refuge under such palatable line as change. Yes, they wanted to implement some reforms in the lower house and it could solely be achieved by changing only the speaker and none other.

It was at this point of the plenary session of our congress that my mind dulled. I could not understand why no congressman acknowledged that because Jose de Venecia III, the speaker's son, divulged a horrible secret of First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo, a secret that carried the trimmings of graft and corruption, the speaker had to be punished. I could have accepted that explanation as honest. I really could not discern why those who wanted de Venecia ousted and replaced refused to come clean with what we knew the cause of such move and rather attempt to mislead us with as nebulous a language as change and reform. I hope our countrymen are not as dumb as I am.

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