No mud seems to stick on Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. They’d practically thrown the kitchen sink at her but she still stands tall – no pun intended – above the fray. She must have enshrouded herself with Teflon since no “Hello Garci” controversy, the Hyatt 10 resignation, two military mutinies and the ZTE bribery scandal would catch on to bring down her presidency. Her sacking of House Speaker Jose De Venecia is one blatant move as if taken from a page in Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” – to gain strength, you have to weaken the enemy.

 There is nothing more pathetic than seeing JDV on live TV coverage trying to cling on to power by his accounting of a litany of rabid acts he did for GMA. In doing so, De Venecia missed out on his chance to redeem himself and become a hero after he let on his son, Joey III, for the kill when the latter implicated the First Gentleman in the anomalous national broadband network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE during a series of Senate hearings.  

 Instead of joining his son to a crusade against corruption every Filipino wanted started, De Venecia, short of denying his son’s allegations, continued smooching up to Arroyo to buttress her bruised image just so he can keep his post. He was like Abraham sacrificing his first-born on the altar of greed. But GMA has already saw the writing on the wall. As blood is thicker than water, she knew that it would be a matter of time before JDV would come to his son’s rescue. That’s why she unleashed her two sons, Mikey and Dado, to chase away a lapdog whose teetering loyalty could devour the system of corruption that has been feeding their unquenchable thirst for power.

 It was a masterstroke of a political assassination reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with GMA dealing JDV a mortal blow to his false sense of invincibility in shepherding congressional votes to push for her impeachment, if he wants to, when the ZTE scandal reaches a critical mass of discontent among the people. Not only did she neutralize JDV, GMA also secured the House as her rubberstamp with her husband’s Ateneo classmate Norberto Nograles Jr. as her new lapdog of a Speaker to ward off any agitation for her removal.

 Now, whatever JDV rats out about corruption in GMA’s administration would only paint himself as a sour-grapping co-perpetrator in institutionalizing corruption in the Philippines. He has no right to moralize because he was the personification of what an immoral public servant is. He would be nothing but an immoral moralist whenever he speaks out against corruption now that he no longer benefits from it.
 

And it’s too late for him to join his son as a crusader for moral rejuvenation because from now on, he would just be perceived as exacting revenge against the First Family.

 For somebody who is the epitome of a traditional politician (trapo), De Venecia has failed to see, or had refused to acknowledge, that a trapo, which in English literally means a rug, is disposable, and which the public would love to trample on when it falls from power. Exactly what former President Cory Aquino did to the late House Speaker Ramon Mitra, another quintessential trapo, whom she dumped for Fidel Ramos after her own party, the Lakas ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), had already chosen Mitra as the standard bearer for the 1992 presidential elections.

 It was De Venecia who masterminded Aquino’s betrayal of Mitra by leading a breakaway faction to form the Lakas-Tao party, along with Ramos and former Sen. Raul Manglapus, which became the political vehicle that catapulted Ramos to the presidency in the elections that same year. What goes around, comes around. “It’s history catching up with JDV,”  Mitra’s son, Palawan Rep. Abraham Kahlil “Baham” Mitra, succinctly puts it after begging incoming Speaker Nograles to stick the first knife on JDV’s back when he moved to declare the position of Speaker vacant.  It was such a poetic justice for the young Mitra.

 But a new twist in this ZTE bribery investigation may well be the match to ignite the fuse on a powder keg of growing public discontent. This new testimony that validates Joey III’s revelations could be the chink in GMA’s thick-skinned armor.

 With the Catholic Church and the Supreme Court openly siding with this new “dramatic” witness in the NBN bribery scandal, Jun Lozada, tainted as he is, could just be the spark to light up whatever patriotism is left in the hearts of law-abiding citizens who are sick to death of what their country has become, and maybe rise up to join Ninoy Aquino in believing that “the Filipino is worth dying for”.