Gina de Venecia for governor?

By Mortz C. Ortigoza DAGUPAN CITY – Fourth District Rep. Gina de Venecia said her electoral option in the next year’s national and local election is open, including running for the province’s gubernatorial post. “Yes, it is not an impossibility,” she quipped when asked if she has a moist eye for the highest political post of the province. Earlier, de Venecia told media men in this city that she considered too a senatorial post in the 2013 poll. “Nag-uusap pa kaming mag-asawa kung ano ang nakakabuti for us and for the people kung saan kami mas makakatulong (I and my husband mull what is best for us and the people where we can help more),”she stressed. In the recent mass wedding in San Jacinto, Pangasinan where the solon stood as a witness, de Venecia’s brother-in-law former senator Ernesto Maceda declared to the crowd that former speaker Jose de Venecia, Gina’s husband, will seek a congressional seat next year, while his spouse Gina can either run as governor, mayor (Dagupan City), or seek another congressional seat in another district. Former speaker de Venecia said he has been also receiving proposals from different sectors for him to either run in the senate or the House of Representatives. “Some people are telling me to run for the senate, my constituents in the 4th District are also asking me to run for the House of Representatives –back to my old seat although Manay Gina is also doing a good job,” he said. But a political spectator, who asked for anonymity, opined that the former speaker’s son and namesake who ran and lost in the 2010 senatorial derby, is rumored too to be running again for a senate seat. “With Jose “Joey” de Venecia, the present secretary general of the Partido Demokratikong Pilipino, gunning for a senate post, it would be quite impossible for his father or step mother Gina to run in the same post as they will be courting a disaster because they have the same surname,” he said. The political spectator said it is best for Gina is either to run for the mayoralty of this city or the gubernatorial seat in the province. He explained that in case Gina chooses not to challenge bitter political rival and this city’s incumbent Mayor Benjamin S. Lim, she can just transfer her residence in San Fabian town and register there one year prior to the local poll as provided by the Local Government Code and the Omnibus Election Code. De Venecia has a house in that town. (Gina de Venecia is a registered voter of San Fabian – ed) Although a candidate of a coalition composed of the Liberal Party, Nationalist Party, Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, and the Nationalist People’s Coalition in the 2010 election, Gina said she is a card carrying member of the NPC. Meanwhile, the lady solon said Governor Amado T. Espino has just taken his oath on March 10, 2012 as a member of the NPC Espino used to be a member of the defunct Lakas-Kampi party headed by former President Gloria M. Arroyo