By Mortz C. Ortigoza
"All politics is local, ” a famous phrase
from my favorite humorous former U.S Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip
O'Neill where his book “Man of the House: The life and Political Memoirs of
Speaker Tip O’Neill” I kept bragging to five-time Philippines' House Speaker Joe
de Venecia whenever I was in a huddle with him.
“Yah, I met Democratic Party’s Speaker O’Neill “All
politics is local” when I met then President Ronald Reagan in the White House,”
the rabble rousing Philippine Speaker kept telling me.
Here’s the neophyte congressman’s son of Speaker Joe
when I interviewed him about the “circus” in the House of Congress perpetrated
by two solons whose hatred with each other hailed from local politics that Speaker O'Neill kept blaming, son of a
gun, whenever political and economic situations in the Land of the Free and the Brave went south.
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| Congressman Ace Barbers points a finger at the face of RepresentativeProspero Pichay in a near fisticuffs that ensued recently at the House of Representatives seen by millions of television viewers. Photo Credit: ABS-CBN |
If House of Representatives’ Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez was ashamed by the near
fisticuff of Congressmen Robert Barbers and Prospero Pichay Jr., a Pangasinan
solon cited that there was bad blood between the duos that started in Surigao
Province.
Barbers and Pichay are congressmen from the second and
first Districts Of Surigao Province.
“That’s what I heard. Again, it was not firsthand
information it was told to me. It also came out in the news,” declared by
Congressman Christopher “Toff” de Venecia.
According to the Daily Inquirer, Pichay pitted
candidates against the Barbers' clan following Robert's refusal to toe the line as
member of the then ruling party Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats when he signed
the failed impeachment complaint against then president Gloria Arroyo, Pichay’s
ally, in the middle of 2000s..
In 2007, former Surigao del Norte governor Lyndon
Barbers lost his congressional bid against Guillermo Romarate Jr., while
Robert won his gubernatorial bid.
It was in 2010 that the Barbers political rule in
Surigao del Norte officially ended after Robert lost his reelection bid to Sol
Matugas, and Lyndon his mayoralty bid to Ernesto Matugas.
