Of interests and rights

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Of interests and rights
Sunday, 02 10, 2008

Ousted Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. of the House of Representatives has finally found his voice to denounce the fraud that marred the May 2004 elections. But it was a voice that he kept stifled through the years, until the very real threat of being unceremoniously disgraced before his peers, and right in his own fiefdom, forced it out of him. Although what he really knows - and kept mum about - promises to be a mouthful, I don’t anticipate it will be any different from what we already know.

For sure, he knows much too much. But given the circumstances which prompt him to now reveal what he claims to be the truth, any revelation after his ouster will matter not a whit at all. Four years ago, De Venecia had already passed up the golden chance to be the hero. It is too late for him to now sing a tune different from what he had, without the blink of an eye or a rise of those famous eyebrows, claimed to be the truth a few moments before his ouster. Like flogging an already dead horse back to life, the rights of those robbed of their votes can no longer be restored.

It was to his interest in the aftermath of the elections to keep quiet. Having been a principal - by indispensable cooperation, if not by direct participation - to the crime of theft of the people’s sovereign will, he was not expected to say anything incriminatory of himself, his co-conspirators and the beneficiaries of the fraud. And in today’s fascistic regime, the rights of those who have cried for blood against the authors and beneficiaries of the fraud can no longer be exercised.

It was to De Venecia’s interest to claim that Gloria Arroyo and Noli de Castro won fair and square. He had to; otherwise, he could not have held on to the position of the fourth most powerful man in the land for four more years. The rights of those otherwise entitled to validly exercise power can no longer be enforced.

Where was he when Fernando Poe, Jr. and Loren Legarda lodged their protest over the marred elections? It was to De Venecia’s interest not to lend them then what he knew about the fraud. Pangasinan, for starters, was notorious for its fraudulent results, but De Venecia as expected had to claim otherwise. FPJ and Loren’s right to sit have been overtaken by events.

And it is for his interest to now say mea culpa after his ouster, to be able to go to bed with those who were denied the whole truth about the elections. But he must know that it is the right of everyone who shouted themselves hoarse crying fraud in 2004 to be suspicious and wary of a De Venecia now suddenly in their midst.

He has been in power for many years. Yes, he knew everything, or probably knows many things done in camera by those who bent the law, went around it, or even operated above it. Like Rodolfo Noel Lozada’s revelations last Thursday, De Venecia’s confession could have exposed the maggots of corruption in this government. But then he had to hold back, dropping only hints, as if expecting that a veiled threat would stop the ouster machinery that was already in overdrive to unseat him. Why, indeed, did he not go flat out in that moment of “moral enlightenment,” having burned his bridges behind him? Was he hoping there was one last bridge ahead and he could cross it by wangling concessions along the way? The right of the public to get a confirmatory revelation from an insider like De Venecia of what is already obvious has to wait another day.

It has been six days since De Venecia’s ouster. Not much has been revealed by him beyond what he said in his speech. He remains president of the political party that has its interests intertwined with all the scandals that have rocked our nation since 1992. And the right of Juan de la Cruz to know when he will no longer be governed by that political party stands in the balance.

The political color of De Venecia now is as vague as his speech last Monday. It is to his interest to define himself that way, to confuse his enemies and friends, and make himself the determinant of where the nation should go after his ouster. The opposition is still wary of him; so are his allies in the administration, however few they have become these days.

The right of the ordinary citizens to know the political color of those governing them has to wait for De Venecia’s declaration of his true intentions. After all, De Venecia’s ouster is still perceived to be “a falling-out between thieves,” as the revered Jovito R. Salonga bluntly puts it. And in this country, when politicians who were once thick as thieves fall out between and among themselves, the interests and rights of the people be damned.


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