JDV bewails continuing vendetta

MANILA, Philippines – Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. decried yesterday what he described as the “continuing vendetta” he is receiving from President Arroyo and her husband.

“I have been removed as Speaker of the House and as Lakas president. Now, I am still facing a case before the Ombudsman. This is part of the continuing vendetta of GMA and FG,” he said, referring to the First Couple.

“This is what I got for siding with my son Joey who just told the truth about the kickbacks-laden national broadband network contract,” he said.

De Venecia was removed as Speaker last Feb. 4 and as president of the ruling Lakas party last month.

The President’s two congressmen-sons, Juan Miguel of Pampanga and Diosdado of Camarines Sur, with the blessing of their mother and father, led the campaign to oust him as Speaker.

A week before De Venecia’s ouster, Mrs. Arroyo promised him that he would keep his House post.

Last Tuesday, the former speaker went to the Office of the Ombudsman to submit his counter-affidavit and answer to the criminal complaint filed against him by lawyer Roel Pulido.

The case stemmed principally from the statement made by Secretary Leandro Mendoza of the Department of Transportation and Communications in the Senate that De Venecia arranged a meeting between him and his son Joey, during which the latter’s NBN proposal was discussed.

Mendoza claimed that then Speaker de Venecia lobbied with him for Joey’s build-operate-transfer (BOT) proposal.

In his answer, De Venecia denied that he arranged a meeting between Mendoza and Joey so that he could lobby for his son’s offer to undertake the NBN project on a BOT basis.

He said the truth is that “Secretary Mendoza came to my house for breakfast and asked me to support his son, who was then running for congressman in Batangas, under the Nationalist People’s Coalition.” “His son (Mark Leandro) won and supported my speakership, for which I was grateful,” he said.

“On his way out of my house, Secretary Mendoza met my son Joey, who was just arriving. I introduced one to the other and they had a talk. I never bothered to find out what they discussed. Under oath, let me belie Secretary Mendoza’s accusation against me when he testified last year before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee,” he said in his counter-affidavit.

Pulido is the same lawyer who filed a complaint against De Venecia before the House ethics committee. The complaint was based largely on Mendoza’s Senate testimony.

The ethics committee, chaired by Romblon Rep. Jesus Eleandro Madrona, has dismissed the complaint for “utter lack of merit.”

Pulido had also filed a three-page impeachment petition against President Arroyo, which De Venecia refused to refer to the committee on justice for being “tainted with bribery allegations.”

However, the House eventually threw out the impeachment petition, giving Mrs. Arroyo a one-year impeachment protection. - Jess Diaz