MANILA, Philippines--One truly is tempted to think about it in terms of Julius Caesar, not least because Jose de Venecia might as well have said to all his protégés in Congress: “Et tu, Brutus? Then fall, Jose!” But the only resemblance to Julius Caesar in the scene at the House of Representatives last Monday was the murderousness of the crew that stabbed the king, or self-deluded king-maker as they accused him of being, their long knives sharpened with the whetstones lent out by Malacañang.

And the depth of the betrayal. The worst of mongrels behaved better. At least Brutus could console himself with the thought he did that to his friend and patron to put an end to his vaulting ambition. The congressmen who voted to assassinate De Venecia and put a worse lackey in his place had no excuse other than to help the current occupant of Malacañang carry out her vaulting ambition. To hear the congressmen’s rationalizations last Monday, which droned on till the witching hour, one was not reminded of Brutus telling the world how fond he was of his friend but because he was ambitious, “I slew him.” One was reminded only of a cesspool.

But that was all the resemblance there was to Julius Caesar. Unfortunately for him, De Venecia did not cut a tragic figure, merely a pathetic one. With furrowed brow, which gave him a more pained expression than he normally wears, he began by saying that since his son exposed the national broadband network deal with ZTE Corp. for the scam that it was, he had been calling for a moral renewal, a moral revolution. For which he had been met by derision, not just by Malacañang officials, but by a skeptical public who said he wasn’t the best person to lead a moral renewal or revolution. Why so? Why can’t a sinner do something like that? “We are all sinners here,” he said. Does that mean Congress is doomed to never lead the nation into the path of grace?

An interesting premise, except that he went on to prove exactly why he was not qualified so. He was a sinner who wasn’t quite ready to confess his sins and repent for them; he was a sinner who merely wanted to cast the first stone. He talked about how Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo owed him everything she was. He enumerated his services, from agreeing to take her as his running mate in 1998, imploring others to step aside for her, to his standing by her side through all her travails, not least when the world saw her as a usurper after 2004. And this was how she repaid him.

That was before he went on to rail against his protégé as the most corrupt President this country has ever had.

He might have gotten some sympathy from his fellows for that tack, but not from the public. The first thing you thought of when you heard De Venecia reminding us of what he did for Arroyo was: Serves you frigging right. You made your spiked bed, go lie in it. His tirade against corruption and perfidy didn’t sail all that well either.

The first thing you thought of too -- and which was in fact what his detractors and sympathizers in Congress asked -- was: Why only now? You had all the time in the world to expose this rottenness and put a stop to it. Why didn’t you do it then? Why only now?

And so flashed the knives in the form of De Venecia’s former supplicants damning him for the very crimes he was accusing Malacañang of. “May I explain my vote, Mr. Speaker?” was the way each one prefaced his stab in the back. Frankly, I never heard more bull since the couple of times Congress convened to kill the impeachment bids against Arroyo, Arroyo’s allies to a man or woman invoking the majesty of the law to screw elemental justice. Headed by De Venecia, which made me applaud rather than curse my television set last Monday night: Finally De Venecia knows what it means to be at the receiving end of those vicious charades.

“It’s karma,” summarized Miriam Santiago happily. Well, hers will come too someday. If it hasn’t so already: I don’t know which is the worse punishment: being Raul Gonzalez or being Miriam Santiago.

But Arroyo did not escape unscathed by last Monday’s events. De Venecia’s tirade about corruption during her watch is the least of the reasons for that. Far more crippling is his charge of ungratefulness, of her unparalleled capacity to bite the hands that feed her. It might not have improved De Venecia’s standing before the world, showing him to be one of the principals to blame for the monstrosity that is her, but it improved Arroyo’s image even less. For good or ill, loyalty, or at least the capacity to be grateful, is high up among the traits Filipinos value. “Ingrato” and “walang utang na loob” are remonstrations or curses that still resound shrilly in and out of soap operas.

More than that, there are the images of the brothers Mikey and Dato Arroyo and Prospero Nograles and their allies drunk with power, smug in the thought of victory and impregnability. The “drunk with power” completely literally, Nograles toasting the Arroyo brothers and his well-wishers with champagne before the voting began, knowing the voting was just a formality, De Venecia’s carcass was about to be dragged by the chariots.

The last time I saw something like that was way back in Joseph Estrada’s time, when his own sons and allies were strutting around, drunk with power, even more literally in their case, filled with the thought no one and nothing could touch them. Indeed, the last time I saw that was way back in Estrada’s time, with Estrada’s allies in the Senate whooping it up in victory, one of them even taking to the floor and like Salome dancing the dance of death. Every “man in the street” interviewed on TV last Monday registered his disgust by saying, “Buti pa, mawala na silang lahat.” [“It would be better if all of them went away.”]

Which brings me to ask Mar, Manny, Dick, Loren, and Ping: Do you still seriously think the current Malacañang squatter will leave peacefully in 2010?

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More ‘titsers’ - 2/05/08
Honor among thieves - 2/04/08
Freedom 101 - 1/31/08
‘Titser’ - 1/29/08
War president - 1/28/08