De Venecia is House Speaker a fifth time

WITH the issue of who will be the Speaker of the 14th House of Representatives still unsettled this morning, the Lower House opened to its most raucous session in recent memory, the session hall resembling a cockpit in terms of sound and chaos.

The pandemonium began at the sound of the gavel. Even House Secretary General Roberto Nazareno’s call for the singing of the national anthem was met by several voices from the floor demanding “point of order” and “parliamentary inquiry.” Nazareno managed to get on with the ceremony by ignoring the voices of protest, but even the morning’s opening prayer was met with more demands to be heard, with two or three congressmen taking the microphone at the same time.

It did not help that this also marked the first day that Rep. Didagen Dilangalen showed up for work after three years of relative silence, having been reelected to Congress as representative of the lone district of the newly created province of Shariff Kabunsuan. Dilangalen gained notoriety for his shrill shouts of “Mr. Speaker! Mr. Speaker” and “Shut up!” during the chamber’s more contentious sessions, when the fate of former President Joseph Estrada was on the table.

When the roll call began at 10:05 a.m., Dilangalen tried to drown out the names of his colleagues for 15 minutes by speaking on the microphone, before settling down. It turned out Dilangalen wanted to question the legality of Nazareno’s presiding over the session, claiming the secretary general’s appointment was not extended by the chamber before it adjourned. Dilangalen’s question was settled only after 2 p.m., when members of the chamber voted to back him up. But not before Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante lost his cool and yelled at Dilangalen to end his questioning, saying “Dalawang daan ang congressman dito, hindi lang ikaw (There are 200 congressmen in this chamber, you are not alone here.)”

And despite the strong fight put up by Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia for the position, in the end his name was not even proffered by his colleagues. Instead, Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez announced on the floor that the opposition has agreed, in a caucus, that San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora will be the minority floor leader. This veered away from the chamber’s tradition wherein the losing candidate for speakership automatically assumed the position. It was also a strategy to avoid an embarrassing situation where both the Speaker and the minority floor leader belong to the administration.

With the minority leader position firmed up ahead of that of the Speaker, Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia was unopposed. He clinched the seat, garnering 159 votes, an hour before the President’s State of the Nation Address. This is de Venecia’s fifth term as speaker.

“This is a crucial time — a point of no return,” de Venecia said in his opening statement. He called on his colleagues to “create the quantity of wealth that will begin to erase the decades of grinding poverty from our midst.”

The fight for speakership had been marred by reports of horse-trading and of money changing hands.

“Gusto ko sana may iba naman na Speaker, para may bago man lang (I would have wanted to work for another speaker),” said a legislative page, who has been at the Lower House since the time of the late Speaker Ramon Mitra.