Joe de V, my hero

Many of us ordinary folks have our heroes. Mine is Jose de Venecia Jr. I write this tribute six days before he turns 80 on Saturday, the 26th day of December 2016.

I imagine that on Monday, the Vera-Perez Gardens in San Juan City will be filled to the rafters to celebrate JDV’s natal day. For sure his guests will include foreign dignitaries from many parts of the world, who, ironically, hold him up as a prophet while to my mind, he seems half-forgotten in his own country.

JDV is best remembered as the only Speaker of the House of Representatives for five terms, or 12 years – in the 9th (1992-1955), 10th (1995-1998), 12th (2001-2004), 13th (2004-2008), and 14th (2008) Philippine Congress. He was president of the dominant party, LAKAS-CMD, and ran for president in the 1998 election but lost to then Vice President Joseph Estrada (who would early in his term be ousted from the presidency), finishing second in a field of 11 candidates. He was one of the 1974 TOYM awardees.

No longer involved in domestic politics, De Venecia has reached out to promote peace among leaders of other countries. He has assumed the role of statesman, respected and held in awe by heads of state. He is founding chairman and founding president of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) and the Centrist Asia Pacific Democrats International (CAPDI). ICAPP is composed of more than 300 ruling and opposition political parties in 52 Asian countries, while CAPDI is a joint political-civil society organization in the Asia Pacific. 

According to De Venecia, ICAPP is a forum of political parties of Asia-Oceanian countries, which was launched in Manila Philippines in September 2000. The objectives of the conference are to promote exchanges and cooperation between political parties from different countries in the area and with various ideologies; to enhance mutual understanding and trust among Asian countries; to promote Asia’s regional cooperation through the unique role and channel of political parties; and to create an environment for sustained peace and shared programs of development.”

On Feb. 15, 2016, some 150 parliamentarians, representing more than 40 nations, signed a resolution to form the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (IAPP). This event took place in the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea at an International Leadership Conference.

Since the inauguration of IAPP in Seoul in February, regional chapters of IAPP have been launched in the Asian-Pacific, East African, West African, European, Central American and South American regions. A North American IAPP chapter was launched at an international leadership conference in Washington, D.C. last month.

De Venecia, with his amiable personality and remarkable intelligence, was elected president and chairman of IAPP. Among the distinguished participants in the conference were IAPP co-chair Dan Burton, former Nepal Premier Madhaw Nepal, first black woman elected to the Parliament of Canada, Rep. Jean Augustine, UPF President Thomas Walsh and Washington Times chair and publisher Thomas McDevitt.

In the US Senate and House of Representatives, JDV asked governments and parliaments “to combine forces to tackle the almost incredible but all too real problem of the richest one percent (1 percent) or 80 of the world’s richest individuals owning sixty percent (60 percent of the wealth of the world, or the same amount shared by 3.5 billion who occupy the bottom half of the world’s income scale.”

In the Philippines, the income and social gap is so great that like Disraeli’s Britain in the 1840s, the rich and the poor among us have become virtually ‘two nations’.”

In 2011, the richest Philippine families accounted for 76 percent of our country’s gross national income. The two riches families alone together held 6 percent of our entire economy.”

He said, “The two nations situation, the incredibly huge gap between the rich and the poor, still exists in many countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa and a number of cities in Europe and North America.”

He pointed out that in IAPP “We observe that inequality is an unavoidable result of market operations. Inequality is the price of capitalist dynamism. Left to itself, rapid economic growth accelerates income inequality.”

But inequality, though unavoidable, De Venecia pointed out, “can be mitigated, made less painful – by government activities and parliamentary action. And it is right that the states and parliaments should do so – because economic insecurity, if left to itself, will steadily erode the social order and eventually generate a backlash against the economic system as a whole.”

He submitted that “the merging and exiting governments today, in search of new platforms, systems, and structures of government might consider a synthesis of the best of socialism and capitalism.”

He pointed out that since President-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory, “we have already noticed the beginnings of significant improvement in the deteriorating US-Russian relations and better chemistry between Philippine President Duterte and Mr. Trump (who) begins to assume office only on January 21, next year.”

De Venecia pointed out that the US “has been the fulcrum of the regional power balance since the end of World War I and Pax Americana has given the Philippines and the East Asian states the breathing spell to put their houses in order, as it is the American market that has enabled them to expand their economies at the world’s fastest rate during this last half-century.”

Let’s go to JDV’s roots. He was born in Dagupan City on Dec. 26, 1936, to Judge Jose R. de Venecia Sr., and Casimira Villamil Claveria. He graduated with a bachelor of science in journalism at the Ateneo de Manila in 1955.

Before he entered politics, JDV was in business, pioneering overseas contract work for Filipinos as one of the first Philippine prime contractors in the Middle East and North Africa in the mid-1970s. Records show that he hired 51,000 Filipinos for his companies and engaged in port operations in Saudi Arabia, agriculture in Africa, and mass housing and oil exploration in the United Arab Emirates. His Middle East engagements led to the employment of millions of Filipinos. He conceived and implemented the historic dollar-remittance program for overseas Filipino workers.

His entry into politics began with his election as congressman of the 2nd District of Pangasinan (1969 to 1972). In the first free election after the anti-Marcos EDSA Revolution, he was elected congressman in 1987.

He was reelected in 1992 and joined the newly created party Lakas Tao of President Fidel Ramos. He initiated the move to unite the National Union of Christian Democrats – a cluster of the Progressive Party of the Philippines and the Union of Muslim Democrats – with Lakas Tao to make it a dominant party. In the same year, he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. He created the “Rainbow Coalition,” converging political parties that include the LDP, NPC, Lakas NUCD, and other minor parties to make a solid majority in the House. He was reelected congressman and speaker in 1995. Again, he ran and won as congressman of the 4th District of Pangasinan, and was in his fifth term when he lost the speakership.

As President Ramos’ peace envoy, he reached out to secessionist Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the RAM-SFP-YOU military rebels, and the Communist Party of the Philippines. He met Libyan President Moammar Qadafi and MNLF Chair Nur Misuari that resulted in forging a peace agreement in Tripoli in 1976. His persuasion of Misuari to accept autonomy led to the signing of the peace pact on September 2, 1996. He met military rebels, and Jose Maria Sison and Luis Jalandoni in the Netherlands, and Hashim Salamat, MILF chair, in Mindanao.

As the year draws to a close, we say hello, happy birthday to my good friend JDV. In today’s parlance, my BFF.

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]