Class Outing 2: Kids, promote parliament and GMA
Even later that afternoon, me, together with some few classmates and Toff, had a conversation with her mom, Mrs. Gina de Venecia over champorado and some sort of stringy dried fish reputably, according to Mr. de Venecia, one of the most expensive kinds of fishes in the market costing at about 1,000 pesos per kilo. Anyway, after our light discussions, Mrs. de Venecia invited her husband to join the table and asked our other classmates to gather around too, this time over halo-halo and a huge bilao of pansit palabok with bits of talaba.
The dialogue was mostly about politics, politics and more politics. Mr. de Venecia practically talked to us as if we were press people in a press conference. He kept talking about parliament and consistency in government that’s why we should re-elect Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo as president. Of course, many of my classmates are apathetic and among those who aren’t, Mrs. Arroyo is not that popular. We also had our say. Mr. and Mrs. de Venecia had some rebuttals. The asked us why we are in favor of the other candidates for president. In the end, it’s still the same. I mean, they express depression over the fact that people base their votes on candidates’ personalities and little on accomplishments but the thing is, they also defended Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo by attacking the personality of her political rivals Roco, Lacson and Poe. It’s sad, the discussions were about the elections and the candidates’ personalities, not the issues. Sometimes, it’s hard to grasp Mr. de Venecia’s rationale especially when he talked about why we should change to parliamentary form of government. He sounds really intelligent though.
The discussion ended with Mrs. de Venecia asking us what we think would help Mrs. Arroyo improve her image and win the elections. Now I’m scared. Gloria Arroyo might just win because of what we said.
[...] I have not against a systematic overhaul of our political system. But if these congressmen will be the same parliamentarians in the new order–then, there is no new order. This, aside from other less discussed issues within the proposed amendments, is what makes me oppose Charter Change, as proposed by the House of Representatives. – During high school, whenever Speaker Jose de Venecia would be present at class gatherings, he would be made to talk, and when you make him talk, all he talks about are the virtues of a parliamentary form of government. When we had a class outing at their Pangasinan estate, he talked to us over merienda and, yes, he talked about the parliamentary form of government, aside from propping up the candidacy of President Gloria Arroyo. This was three years ago. And even when I browse through newspaper archives at the main library (for amusement, I’m weird like that), it appears that Mr. de Venecia has been at it for more than a decade. [...]