JDV: Refusal to endorse ‘bogus’ impeach rap cost me Speakership

(Updated 10:55 a.m.) MANILA, Philippines – Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr on Monday said his removal as House Speaker and as president of the Lakas-NUCD party stemmed from his refusal to endorse a “sham and bogus" complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Speaking during the resumption of the House Justice Committee hearing into the impeachment complaint against President Arroyo, De Venecia - a former Malacañang ally - said had he endorsed the weak impeachment complaint, he would still be House Speaker. “Last year, for refusing to endorse a sham and bogus impeachment complaint against the President and for supporting my son’s call for truth and justice, I was removed as a Speaker of the House of Representatives and I was removed as President of the Lakas-NUCD party," De Venecia said in the ongoing deliberations on the complaint’s sufficiency in substance. De Venecia said President Arroyo asked him three to four times but that he consistently refused to transmit to the Justice committee the three-page complaint. "I told the President of the Philippines I cannot endorse this impeachment complaint. She asked me three or four times and I said no...And I said I might go on leave as Speaker of the House," he said. De Venecia said President Arroyo asked him three to four times but that he consistently refused to transmit to the Justice committee the three-page complaint. "I told the President of the Philippines I cannot endorse this impeachment complaint. She asked me three or four times and I said no...And I said I might go on leave as Speaker of the House," he said. In an earlier radio interview, De Venecia's lawyer Raul Lambino narrated that President Arroyo and De Venecia met at Malacañang Palace where President Arroyo told the then-House Speaker to endorse a weaker impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Roberto Rafael "Roel" Pulido. The Pulido complaint was based mainly on the $329.48-million ZTE broadband deal mess in which his son Jose “Joey" De Venecia III was the whistleblower. De Venecia, who fell from Malacañang's graces after his son linked personalities close to the Palace to graft-tainted broadband deal, was ousted as Speaker last February and was subsequently ousted as Lakas-NUCD’s president. De Venecia founded the Lakas party with former President Fidel V. Ramos and the late Raul Manglapus. - Sophia Dedace, GMANews.TV