De Venecia: Lakas to reform after disengaging from Kampi

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines—One of the original leaders of erstwhile administration party Lakas said its members plan to rebuild the organization, which has been decimated  by its merger with former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi).

Albay Rep. Edcel lagman resigned as House minority leader this week, owing to a leadership dispute with Kampi members in Congress who remain loyal to Arroyo.

“It is unfortunate that the minority is now hopelessly split, further weakening the [merger of] Lakas-Kampi-Christian Muslim Democrats,” said former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. on Friday.

“(But) that’s just for the moment. The party needs new leaders, a new political structure, so it can regain its old glory. We will wait until those controlling the party will make their exit, then we will consider reviving it,” he said.

De Venecia said Lakas-CMD could disengage from Kampi to make the party “pure again.”

It was Lakas-CMD which propelled its founder, Fidel V. Ramos to the presidency in 1992.

In 2008, Arroyo merged the party with Kampi. Ramos and De Venecia objected to the merger.

Ramos declined the offer to be the merged parties’ chairman emeritus.

De Venecia sought the merger’s nullification by the Commission on Elections, but lost in the Comelec and the Supreme Court.

“I resigned as president of Lakas-Kampi because President Ramos and I agreed that we would exit from Lakas while Arroyo was the principal force. [I also left the party] because they illegally effected the merger which was not ratified by the general assembly of Lakas,” he said.

The five-time House speaker said he has kept himself busy as chair of the International Environmental Safety Cooperation Organization, a global climate change group with offices in Beijing, China.

“The threat of climate change has become more serious than the threats of atomic bomb,” he said.