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In just a few months, former Speaker Joe de Venecia has transformed
himself from one at the beck and call of bigger leaders (Marcos,
Ramos, Arroyo) to that of his own man. The hard swerve he took and
the clean break he made with his decades of political mendicancy was
by itself an amazing act. That he made the hard swerve in the winter
of his political life, when there is little to be gained from it,
all the more made the act look like un-de Venecia.
Others find a complex narrative here and raise
all peripheral, though heroic reasons, why de Venecia finally bade
goodbye to his long years as a political satrap and cast his lot
with the angry voices of the outcasts. The tug of family, for one,
as his son and namesake was a central character in the ZTE expose.
But the reason is simple enough and clear enough.
The credible reason why he signed the failed
impeachment resolution against President Gloria Arroyo, and
testified for it before a skeptical House, was an eye toward the
verdict of history.
What motivated de Venecia to take that unsafe
fork on the road?
He was clearly a man seeking a favorable
footnote in the history books. He was a man desperately trying to
seal for himself history’s favorable verdict. To de Venecia, when
he made that life-changing decision, there can be no other reason
more compelling and urgent than wanting the next generation’s kind
view of him.
All the other reasons and motivations
cited—like his desire to play hero and be hailed as a savior after
the toppling down of President Arroyo—just don’t wash. De
Venecia was smart enough to realize that testifying against
President Arroyo a few days back would hardly sway a chamber that
was determined to crush the impeachment resolution at all cost.
He knew the chamber like the palm of his hand.
He had been its chief manipulator for years, pulling the strings to
move the administration’s agenda, marshalling the troops to kill
any form of dissent, crushing impeachment moves with extreme
prejudice. He very well knew the men and women of the House, flawed
mortals with flawed to sinister agendas.
The timing of his anti-Arroyo testimony was also
entirely off.
De Venecia made his defiant act belatedly. He
was too late the hero. Had he not dithered and meandered, had he
made his anti-Arroyo testimony during the peak of the
anti-administration rage—his testimony would have mattered. Had he
testified at the right time and at the apt context, he could have
ignited the burning fires of the anti-Arroyo protests.
But no. It was not breaking a president and
toppling a government that de Venecia was really after. It was a
clean break with his long history of blind service to people more
powerful than himself. It was to clear his conscience, make peace
with himself.
And it is from this context and perspective,
that of a man who had made a clean break with his sordid past, where
de Venecia wants to be judged by history.
Will de Venecia get his wish to be favorably
viewed by history?
Whether he is finally listed under the flawed
men who finally redeemed themselves, or under the political
mendicants who failed to do enough to redeem themselves, we do not
know. The temporal verdict is, however, clearer.
The 2010 election will lead to an opposition
victory, the camp to which de Venecia now belongs. Within the short
term, he will see his status change. From a brief stint in the
political wilderness, he will be hailed as the grand old man of the
new administration, which will take over in 2010.
After his political resurrection in 2010, de
Venecia is faced with two choices. One is to go back to his old ways
of servitude and bondage. Praising the new political masters and
serving them—a serf to master relationship.
The other is to offer wise counsel. Instruct the
new political masters on how to make a clean break with the sad
politics of the past. By doing this, by taking this option, he will
truly earn his hoped-for political redemption.
mvrong@yahoo.com
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