THE grip on the speakership of Lakas Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. of Pangasinan has never been threatened since he assumed the post the first time. He has taken it effortlessly four times.

He has been unchallenged, indeed, until the 81-year-old Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino Rep. Pablo Garcia of Cebu came into the picture. Garcia, whose grip on Cebu means he has been critical in the making of presidents.

Seeking his fifth term when Congress opens on July 23, de Venecia and his allies have started to feel the heat so that almost every day, congressmen loyal to him are issuing statements praising him and most of the time “hitting” Garcia, a move exuberantly reciprocated by the latter’s camp.

The word war recently took an uglier turn, prompting Liberal Party Rep. Abraham Mitra of Palawan to call for a “cease-fire,” and saying that if the mudslinging continues,  whoever wins  in the end  will be damaged goods, his reputation destroyed in a contest that is supposedly civil because it is among friends. Mitra, however, belongs to the Liberal Party which has apparently bolted the opposition after riding the anti-GMA sentiment to victory in the last election, so as to join the most stalwart of GMA’s supporters, the Garcia dynasty in Cebu. In exchange, the Liberal Party expects to receive the leadership of the minority in the next Congress, although it is one of the smallest groups in the United Opposition. In short, it will be gifted the minority leadership by the majority victory, assuming this will be a Speaker Pabling Garcia.

The “psychological warfare” has become so intense that de Venecia’s camp recently came up with full-page paid advertisement virtually claiming the speakership race over by publishing the signatures of an overwhelming number of congressmen who will vote for him on the first day of the 14th Congress.

Garcia’s camp lamely said the advertisement was deceiving because the congressmen who signed the advertisement were only articulating their support for his 12-point economic action plan, but not for his bid for the speakership.

The ad of the Garcia camp said that many of the congressmen who signed the manifesto did not fully read the declaration, and missed that portion where they were supposed to express “support” for de Venecia. This only confirmed former Speaker Ramon Mitra’s famous quip that congressmen will sign any paper shoved under their noses, “even toilet paper.” The congressmen were offended. Of course they meant their signatures as a vote for Joe—but for how long? And will it hold in a secret balloting for the speakership?

The following is a report on a no-holds-barred, free-wheeling interview with the “challenger,” Rep. Pablo Garcia, conducted by BusinessMirror reporter Fernan Marasigan.

It appears that de Venecia’s camp has never been this threatened, considering there was never so much noise created when the speakership was contested in past Congresses. Why is this so?

This is because this is the first time that there is a serious contender for the speakership. In the past the speakership was challenged just for the sake of challenging it. There were no serious contenders.

That’s right. For instance, in the 13th Congress, Speaker de Venecia actually picked the minority chief. It was a toss-up between Chiz Escudero and Ronnie Zamora. He picked Chiz because Ronnie’s brother, Manny, is awash with cash, so Ronnie would be uncontrollable. That is why the minority then was divided behind the scenes between the “reasonable” and the “unreasonable” critics of GMA.

Is that a fact?

It is. Okay, so how confident are you that you can beat de Venecia?

If I couldn’t make it, I’d have quit the race long time ago. When I had a meeting with the President, I told her that there is no turning back.

What about the 177 congressmen whom de Venecia claimed are on his side? We have seen the originals. They are a lot. Only one withdrew his signature, Amado Bagatsing.

You know this is just Joe’s psywar (psychological warfare). The truth is he knew that he does not have the numbers, that is why he is engaging in propaganda and mind conditioning. It is also why he is afraid of secret balloting for the choice of Speakership.

That’s never been done, Joe says. It is antidemocratic.

Not true. It is done in Canada and other modern democracies. It is only in popular elections where balloting should be secret, to protect the voter from retaliation.

But it is the essence of democratic responsibility to vote openly on all questions that come before the public and there is no question more open than whom a representative picks to lead the Congress as Speaker.

But you don’t get the real choices that way given Filipino attitudes. Filipinos are confrontational and friendship is a very strong factor. It would be better to have secret balloting so it is not personal.

But it would be opportunistic. Those who vote against the winner can still claim favors from him. Anyway, how would your secret balloting work out. And what is its impact on the so-called real minority, the anti-GMA opposition. You know Joe de Venecia has given them the assurance that no matter how the Speakership vote goes on the first day of Congress, if he loses he will surrender the minority leadership to the Genuine Opposition and step aside completely. But you want to assume the minority leadership.

I see nothing wrong with that. But I am prepared to yield the minority leadership to the opposition if I lose a secret ballot.

That would be a pity because if you lose and step aside, that means the minority will be very tiny because the electorate rejected all but a small number of oppositionists for House seats. And if quorum ceases to be a problem, then the minority will be completely inconsequential. Wouldn’t it be better if you stuck it out with the minority if you lost so that the minority would not be so pitifully small?

Okay, how is that secret ballot going to be conducted?

In all party caucus.

Including the opposition parties? Do they get to vote for you or Joe de V?

That’s the idea. Everyone votes. Then whoever between us comes out the winner, will be the only candidate of the majority at the opening of Congress against the candidate of the minority from the Genuine Opposition.

Let us explore the idea of the minority voting with most of the majority to elect the Speaker, leaving a part of majority as the minority. Roilo Golez thinks it is anomalous.

We effectively had it in the time of Cory Aquino. I was in the House. We belonged to her party. She sent us the agrarian reform bill. We didn’t like it. We shot it down. It happens in the US, too.

So the minority in the House need not be the political opposition to the administration. It is just the opposition to the majority in the House, like the Republican Right-wing voting down the Republican president’s immigration reform legislation as too lenient.

Correct.

But why are you challenging Joe de V?

We need change in the House, in the way the House is run. We need more transparency, a serious approach to the way the House is run. Look at the membership in each of the key committees, almost as many as there are members of Congress. Appropriations had over 150. How do you get a quorum? And look at the number of committees.

How come we question the budgets of all the departments of the Executive, but no one is allowed to question the budget of the House. We should constitute the House as a committee of the whole and openly consider its budget. Where the money goes, who it goes to. Where the money went, who it went to.

Can’t that be done in camera, in executive session, so the public doesn’t know?

Okay, if you want that but why hide it.

If the House had fewer committees, as you propose, then fewer congressmen would enjoy the additional power and perks of heading a committee, which is a way of supplementing both the income of the congressman and the staff he needs to function well. And also making him more important.

Then the solution is to pay the congressmen better and give them more staff. When I started in Congress, the House budget was smaller than a billion pesos and the staff allocated was just six. That includes your driver. Today, the budget is over three billion pesos and the staff of a congressman is still six. Out of the three billion over a billion is unaccounted for.

Well, all the more reason to divide and subdivide the committees so as to get more positions and more income for each congressman.

Why not pay him more and increase his staff, to, say, 20? Be open about it. It is what will make the congressman more effective.

But paying congressmen more and giving them more staff does not mean equitably distributing the, you know, other “stuff” that only chairmen get, especially in the Committees of Appropriations and Ways and Means, where they get more projects and more attention from businessmen wanting to avoid taxes.

That is for the chairmen and the committee members to work out for themselves. But I am proposing not just fewer committees but, to balance that, more subcommittees with the kind of autonomy and power that Senate and House subcommittees in the US Congress enjoy.

But no matter how many subcommittees and subcommittee chairmanships there are under fewer committees, it is the handful of committee chairmen who will have the last say on what a measure, for example, will finally contain. So they will still be the only ones who will count and will get to count the perks, so to speak.

Not if we organize it like in the US where a subject matter is broken up and each part is handled by a different subcommittee whose recommendations are final and cannot be tampered with by the mother committee.

Totoo?

That’s how it is done there. The committee chairman cannot just substitute his own ideas for the subcommittees’ final contributions to the measure. Any changes need to go back to the subcommittee concerned and decided on by them.

Not here. Even the draft of the proposed Constitution in the 13th Congress Cha-cha and People’s Initiative kept changing from day to day depending on the literary mood of Congressman [Constantino] Jaraula.

[Shakes his head].

And only the minority can question the budget or any measure because if you are with the majority you are deemed to be for anything the majority supports.

That’s nonsense. Where did you get that?

The House of de Venecia.

Is it in the rules?

No. Now you are asking me questions.

A congressman must be independent. He answers to his constituents. He can do what he wants; he can question when and whatever he pleases. That is what a Congress is all about.

And that Cha-cha was a catastrophe. I told the President. I told Joe de Venecia. This is wrong. It is a prescription for the destabilization of the presidency. That is what it is. And look at the constitutional changes Joe wanted. The President would be transitional and must step down in 2010 but the members of Congress can stay on until they decide to step down. Meanwhile they can impeach the President to compel her to devolve more and more executive powers to the prime minister. That is why I am challenging Joe, to clarify what is really the majority administration party, who are for GMA? I worry about the President. What will happen to her after she steps down? Who will protect her from her enemies? The Lakas?

At the cocktail thrown by Amado Bagatsing for you, you said that the next president must be friendly to this president, but you cannot depend on friendship or gratitude. The next president must be powerless to hurt her.

Your words. And that is why we need to know who are the majority who will stand by the President. We in Cebu need to know because we like this president. Did you know that we bucked the trend throughout the country and the leading opposition candidates trailed at the bottom in Cebu?

Let’s go back to the way the House does business. In the last days of the last Congress, there was a quorum to submit the Cheaper Medicine Act, passed on second reading, to the formality of a third reading. It was not submitted until there was quorum. This was questioned. The majority floor leader said it was his prerogative to decide what bill goes for a vote and what doesn’t.

Wrong. There is a priority to the submission of bills for voting that does not depend on the whim of anybody. If a bill is ripe for final vote, it takes precedence.

We’re finishing up. How would you describe the ongoing speakership race compared to the past Congress?

This is a real battle. This is very exciting and interesting.

So if you win the speakership, what do you intend to do? What are your plans for the House of Representatives?

If elected Speaker, my first agenda will be institutional reforms. I’ll make the House of Representatives a more transparent, responsive and responsible Congress. It should truly be the House of the People. There are so many things that need to be done like mending the relationship with the Senate, solve the lack of quorum in the House, ensure transparency and equity in  disbursements of funds and streamlining and rationalization of committee chairmanships which was bloated beyond recognition during Joe’s time.

Besides these, if elected speaker, what will be your first order of the day?

I will lead by example. You see the Speaker should lead by example—a practice that never happened during Joe’s time.

What makes you different from de Venecia?

I have no personal and political agenda that is why I will be open for public scrutiny.

How would you describe de Venecia who like you is an ally of Mrs. Arroyo?

I could feel it in my bones, the adventures and misadventures of Joe. As I said, when I advised him that Charter change is a prescription for destabilization, he did not listen. Did Joe think about this? Joe is not a loyal ally of the President. Joe is for Joe.

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