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PANGASINAN’S 4th DISTRICT POLLS 'A MATTER OF NATIONAL INTEREST'
The Manila Times
April 18, 2007
DAGUPAN CITY: Former senator Heherson Alvares said here that the elections in the Fourth District of Pangasinan where House Speaker Jose de Venecia is running for reelection “is a matter of national interest.”
Speaker de Venecia, president of the country’s largest political party, Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, is facing a lone opponent of Mayor Benjamin Lim of Dagupan City, a candidate of the United Opposition-PDP Laban.
Alvarez, vice-president for Luzon of Lakas-CMD, called on the people of the fourth district of Pangasinan that when they’re going to make the choice on who’s going to be the congressman here, “you’re deciding for the whole nation.”
“That‘s why,” Alvarez said, “even the people in his province of Isabela and in other parts of the country should also get themselves involved as the electorate in Dagupan City, Mangaldan, San Fabian, San Jacinto and Manaoag, Pangasinan, “might commit the mistake in their choice—which would hurt us all.”
Speaking in Ilocano, Alvarez said if the people of Pangasinan fourth district would send to Congress someone who is also industrious and good-looking but does not measure up to the job, that would be injurious to the whole nation.
He was referring to Lim, his colleague in Congress from 1998 to 2001 who, he said, may be aggressive but cannot duplicate what de Venecia has done and can do as leader of the whole House of Representatives, of the nation and of the world.
Alvarez said the first Speaker of the House of Representatives from Pangasinan was the late Eugenio Perez and it was only after 54 years that another Speaker from Pangasinan emerged, in the person of House Speaker Jose de Venecia, now in his fourth term as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
He refreshed the memory of the Pangasinenses that the late Speaker Eugenio Perez, who died 54 years ago, was among the greatest leaders of the country in the post-war era.
It’s only after 54 years that the fourth district produced another Speaker in the House of Representatives in the caliber of Speaker Perez, that is why, there is no sense if the people of the fourth district will join a move to oust de Venecia.
Alvarez, whose roots, he said, came from Binmaley, Pangasinan, stressed that if the people of the fourth district will commit a monumental blunder in the coming election, it will be more than 50 years, or not at all, before the province could produce another Speaker of the House.
“Imagine, 54 years ago, you elected here a great man in the person of lolo Eniong [nickname of the late Speaker Eugenio Perez. Another Pangasinense became Speaker 54 years later and that is Joe de Venecia,]” Alvarez told newsmen.
He said it would be a product of irrational thinking to ever plot for the removal of Speaker de Venecia when he is at the peak of his career as leader of the whole nation and as leader of the world, whose name reverberates even in the United Nations.
“It is not easy to make a Speaker. “This Speaker [de Venecia] is an unusual one. He’s not only a Speaker of the House. He’s also an acknowledged statesman and a world legislator, Alvares said.
He said here is a man (de Venecia) who will not only be a congressman but is going to be a nation-builder as he has always been.
Alvarez considers de Venecia a miracle worker who performed much not only for Pangasinan but to all Filipinos.
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