Lakas, NPC seal comeback bid of JDV

The comeback bid of Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. for the speakership appeared to have been sealed with the agreement of the opposition Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) to coalesce with De Venecia’s Lakas supporters.

Former Sen. Ernesto Maceda told radio station dzBB yesterday that businessman Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., NPC founder and chief financier, has committed the support of NPC congressmen to De Venecia under a partnership between the two blocs.

Maceda, former NPC president, said the sharing of House committees is now being discussed.

Cojuangco’s political party is a solid bloc and has close to 60 congressmen-members. De Venecia, who is Lakas national chairman, has the support of the mainstream Lakas and congressmen belonging to other political groups and party-list organizations.

The former Speaker is up against a coalition of seven smaller political groups led by the Liberal Party, the conscience bloc of the opposition Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino and a Lakas faction headed by Palawan Rep. Vicente Sandoval.

Sandoval, Deputy Speaker Carlos Padilla, who heads the LDP bloc, and Batanes Rep. Florencio Abad, LP president, are among De Venecia’s opponents.

Maceda said NPC is proposing that one of its members chair the powerful House committee on appropriations, the panel that scrutinizes the annual budget.

During the time of former Speaker Manuel Villar, an NPC member, Rizal Rep. Gilberto Duavit, chaired the appropriations committee.

Reached for comment on the former NPC president’s revelation, Rep. Joey Salceda (Lakas, Albay), principal strategist of De Venecia, confirmed that Lakas and NPC would soon firm up their partnership.

"We are now putting the finishing touches to it. The opposition is about to be clobbered," he said.

Salceda recalled that when he first became Speaker during the Ramos years, De Venecia, who led a small group of Lakas congressmen, worked out a coalition among NPC, LDP, LP, and other political parties and formed what he called the Rainbow Coalition.

The multi-party coalition provided the backbone for a legislative agenda that contributed to the unprecedented economic growth the nation attained during the Ramos administration, he said.

"We want to repeat that. We want to have a broad coalition that would support the Arroyo administration’s legislative and economic agenda," he said.

He added that De Venecia’s opponents are welcome to join such a coalition.

Earlier, opponents of the former Speaker said President Arroyo has proposed a term-sharing between De Venecia and his opponents to avert a break-up of her supporters in the House.

Both camps, however, rejected the proposal, saying they would rather fight it out.