Playing with Fire
Chat with JDV
By Gonzalo Duque
ON December 26, at a little past 6 p.m.., we took a quick drive from the Sanctuario de San Antonio at Forbes Park to the plush residence of former Speaker Joe De Venecia in the company of Jun Velasco, his wife Cathy, newsman Ruben Rivera, and our son Nanoy.
The idea was to greet him a warm “Happy Birthday.” It was his 78th birthday.
In less than five minutes we were at the patio of Tamarind Road with Congresswoman Gina’s kin Boy Nakpil receiving us. We told Boy we wished to greet JdV briefly and be back at the church as we were a sponsor to the wedding of our nephew, Dr. Marco, son of our sister-in-law Mita and late brother Dr. Ado, with former President Fidel V. Ramos, Congressman Pol Bataoil, former Board Member Bobby Sison, brothers Cezar and Pingcoy and sisters Grace D. Dizon and Dr. Luz D. Hammersheimb among the co-sponsors.
When no JDV was around at 6:20 as he was still in the shower, an aide told us, so we begged off with an earnest message to extend our birthday greetings.
The Sanctuario is very near, so we were not ruffled at all when we joined the wedding entourage.
That was pala a preview of our forthcoming meeting at his Bonuan Binloc residence the next day as we both came home to ‘Bangus City.’
Breakfast consisted of daing na Bonuan bangus, eggs, Alaminos longganisa, marinated oyster imported from Taiwan, “binuburan” or rice fermented with yeast, and the most delicious Makopa fruit, also imported from Taiwan.
Punch readers may be interested to know that we fought the former Speaker in two congressional races. The first one in 1987 was tough as we believe we gave him a rough time.
There was little politics in our chat, such as on his query why we ran against him twice. The last in 1992. We told him we wanted to be Pangasinan governor just like our erpat, former Governor Paco, and so a congressional take off might be a strategic plan, we said.
He just smiled. In our mind, we were almost at the doorsteps of the Capitol, having been elected vice governor.
Ok rin ang nangyari sa buhay natin. We gained in victory – but also gained wisdom in defeat.
There’s one thing we saw in JDV that most politicians should emulate. His humility. You see, we fought a tough fight, but there was no hint of resentment in him. So timaguey so admiration tan respeto natin sa kanya.
Somewhere in our random exchange, the subject of the ongoing clash between Governor Espino and former Congressman Mark Cojuangco cropped up. Is there no chance to make them re-unite and probably come up with an ideal tandem such as a Mark Cojuangco-Pogi Espino team?
We casually said it may be too late now unless some hard-to-displease party intervene!
He said he was doing another book, after his first book, Global Filipino, authored by Brett M. Decker, former editor of the Wall Street Journal.
We were delighted to hear that, but hastened to speak out our mind on what we thought would be a more pragmatic strategy, if JDV would want to stay in the public awareness.
To us, ang dami niyang ideas – global, national and local. These ideas should be shared to the Filipino public on a regular basis, just like what FVR is doing. He has a regular Sunday column in the Manila Bulletin.
FVR has also a regular column in BizNews of Tony Lopez.
Not many probably know that Manong Joe was – still is – a journalist. He finished AB Journalism at the Ateneo with no less than the late Max Soliven as his professor.
Maraming ideas si Manong Joe.
In fact, many of the things this country is now enjoying came from his ingenious mind.
The Bases Conversion Law, the Clark Development Program and the OFW Remittance Program, to name just a few.
Others including inter-faith dialogue to promote world peace, the debt-to-equity proposal, etcetera…
If you ask us, it’s this asset of Manong Joe that’s becoming his liability, too. Sa dinamidami ng ideas at accomplishments niya, hindi tuloy siya masundan ng publiko.
It is on these that our Lyceum Northwestern University honored him with a doctorate degree Honoris Causa in Public Administration in 2001.
Marami ang nagtaka why we gave him an Honoris Causa, since we were once political enemies. We said iyon naman clash namin, walang personalan.
And so it was just very natural for us to re-connect? Right? Malaki and respeto natin sa kanya at admiration.
We were touched when the Manong even accompanied us to our car when we begged to leave.
On our way home, we were going over our breakfast chat, as it felt like we had covered an entire library and a thick pile of newspapers.
Such a learned man and pragmatic statesman.
Brod Czar told us, JDV is a lot better than Vice President Jejomar Binay in that the former never allowed the dynasty issue to hound his family. Si Binay? Asawa, mga anak nasa poder….nakaka…
As we close the year 2014, we want to say this, To those we have wronged, if ever they believe we have wronged them; then they must be wrong.
Happy New Year!
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