GMA keeps status quo at House

Stay put.

This was what President Arroyo told Speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella the other night, in effect opting to keep the status quo in the House of Representatives.

The President phoned the Speaker late Monday night to inform him of her decision. Fuentebella, who belongs to deposed President Joseph Estrada’s Lapian ng Masang Pilipino (LAMP) coalition and who has recognized Mrs. Arroyo’s presidency, promised to cooperate with her administration.

The decision angered many of the more than 90 congressmen belonging to four political groups who supported the impeachment complaint against Estrada.

The congressmen, whose ranks have swelled to more than 110 with defections from the Fuentebella camp, were all set yesterday to reinstall former Speaker Manuel Villar Jr.

Estrada allies in the House ousted Villar on Nov. 13 shortly after he made history by speedily transmitting the impeachment case against the deposed president to the Senate.

"We, who marched in the streets and risked our lives in protest against the previous rotten leadership, feel disillusioned, disheartened, saddened, betrayed," Rep. Juan Miguel Zubiri (Lakas, Bukidnon) told reporters.

He reminded Mrs. Arroyo and other Lakas leaders that the "fight against Erap started here in the House."

Venting his anger, another Lakas congressman, Magtanggol Gunigundo I of Valenzuela, said: "Parang wala kaming ipinaglaban dito (It is as if we fought for nothing here)."

Mrs. Arroyo’s partymates were scheduled to appeal her decision last night in a meeting at her mother’s Forbes Park residence, but some Lakas congressmen said there was no use going there.

Zubiri and Gunigundo also denounced what they described as "meddling" in House affairs by former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., a Lakas stalwart and the party’s presidential candidate in the 1998 elections.

De Venecia proposed a power-sharing between the LAMP group and the new majority coalition composed of Lakas, Villar’s Conscience Bloc, the Liberal Party, a breakaway faction of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), and the group of LAMP defectors.

Under the proposal, LAMP would retain the speakership and the chairmanship of the accounts committee. The other positions would be shared by the groups composing the majority.

Makati Rep. Joker Arroyo expressed surprise over the suggested setup.

"Those are the two most powerful positions in the House. The accounts committee controls the purse, which, up to June, holds about P1.3 billion that could be used for election purposes. That is why the moral minority is resisting the arrangement," he said.

For his part, Rep. Oscar Moreno (Lakas, Misamis Oriental), sarcastically asked: "JDV who? Is he related to Jose Velarde?"

Arroyo and Moreno were among the 11 House members who prosecuted Estrada in his impeachment trial. It was their team that exposed the controversial Velarde accounts.

Allies of President Arroyo suspect that it was De Venecia who convinced her to keep the status quo in the House.

In 1998, after Estrada won over him by a landslide, De Venecia proposed a government of reconciliation to the then newly elected leader.

Estrada responded positively and appointed De Venecia’s running mate, then newly elected Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as secretary of social welfare and development.

Obviously, the former Speaker has successfully brokered the same arrangement with Mrs. Arroyo.