JDV re-elected Speaker; Drilon retains Senate presidency

Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. was re-elected yesterday to an unprecedented fourth term by an overwhelming majority of the 236-member House of Representatives.

Voted minority leader was Sorsogon Rep. Francis Escudero, the campaign spokesman of Fernando Poe Jr. standard-bearer of the opposition Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino in last May’s elections.

Senate President Franklin Drilon also won another term after he got the vote of 13 senators in the 23-member chamber.

The 24th elected senator, Noli de Castro, was elected vice president last May.

De Venecia was nominated by Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo, President Arroyo’s son. The nomination was seconded by his uncle, Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo.

On other hand, Drilon was nominated by Sen. Manny Villar Jr., who will assume the Senate presidency in 2006 under a term-sharing agreement he and Drilon had forged.

Escudero was nominated by Taguig-Pateros Rep. Allan Peter Cayetano, who had bolted the pro-administration Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats to join the Nacionalista Party.

Speaking after his re-election, De Venecia said Congress must rationalize the tax incentives government has given to businessmen as these have resulted in economic distortions.

"First and foremost, we must deal with the fiscal crisis," he said.

"Only by managing the public-sector deficit can we stabilize the economy as a whole. Hence, we must increase tax revenues; complete restructuring our high-cost power sector.

"We must also mobilize private-sector finance; invest in modern infrastructure; and make the whole of the business environment more attractive to investors," De Venecia said.

He said the nation is facing a financial crisis, dramatized by a huge budget deficit and a foreign currency crisis already worsened by the foreign-debt burden.

"We are faced with the long-running communist insurgency and Muslim secessionist rebellion, both of which remain unresolved despite our best efforts at peace making," he said.

"We are faced with negative politics that has swept aside all norms of civility and disdained the virtue of dialogue and conciliation."

De Venecia said looming large are the nation’s "structural weaknesses" that are choking the economy’s growth and impeding its global competitiveness.

"We are saddled, among so many burdens, with rapid population growth, mass poverty, low savings rate, inadequate rural development, the slow diffusion of technology, and outmoded infrastructure," he said.

De Venecia said lawmakers must put an end to "politics-as-usual‚ and business-as-usual" attitudes so Congress can be united.

"We must moderate our fractional struggles for political power so that we can unite this House, this Congress, in our struggle to survive global competition," he said.

"For we cannot unite the nation, unless we first unite this House and unite the Senate. Only then could we begin to heal the nation."

De Venecia said Congress must focus on three basic objectives:

• Improve government’s ability to provide essential public services.

• Stop collusion, corruption, and nepotism that are paralyzing the country’s productive capacity.

• Begin the process of shifting to the parliamentary system best suited to the country’s political development.

"Constitutional change can become our basic tool for reforming politics, for improving governance, and for moving from a closed‚ to an open‚ economy," he said.

Filipino overseas workers must be brought back to their families, De Venecia added.

At the Senate, in a surprising turn, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who ran and won under the pro-administration ticket, voted opposition Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. for Senate president. Pimentel got 10 votes.

"I think Senator Pimentel is more than qualified than Drilon to be the Senate president for he has shown his patriotism and even landed in jail for defending human rights," she said.

However, Drilon said he does not take it against his provincemate Santiago her decision to vote for Pimentel.

"Each senator is free to vote for his or her choice as Senate president," he said. "As I have always said, the Senate presidency is a gift of 13 senators of this chamber."

Drilon said he and Villar will seek the majority’s support for their term-sharing agreement to lead the chamber.

"We will be working on this insofar as the support of that agreement is concerned," he said.

"That was contained in our statement when we announced it to the press. It was an agreement between Senator Villar and myself.

"We have agreed that we will seek the support of the senators at the appropriate time," Drilon said.

Drilon denied Santiago’s allegations that he was making a commodity of the Senate presidency.