BY WENDELL VIGILIA

INEVITABLE and irreversible.

House Speaker Jose de Venecia is due to pack his bags this week as the anti-De Venecia faction led by Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte and presidential son Juan Miguel "Mikey" Arroyo of Pampanga have reportedly gathered more than the required 121 signatures to replace him with Rep. Prospero Nograles (Lakas, Davao).

At least 56 members from President Arroyo’s political party, the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), majority of the 100-member Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, 21 Liberal party members and 15 Nacionalista Party members have reportedly signed the manifesto of withdrawal of support from De Venecia.

BY ANTHONY IAN CRUZ

MIGRANTE International will start street protests today to press for the scrapping of a controversial rule requiring foreign employers to pay $8,000 in fees to directly hire Filipino workers.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration issued Memorandum No. 4 issued last December 18 requiring foreign employers seeking to hire OFWs to pay a $5,000 repatriation bond to guarantee the repatriation of the worker or of his remains in the event of death, and a $3,000 performance bond to guarantee payment of salaries.

Protests have erupted elsewhere. The Philippine embassy in Singapore was compelled to "hold in abeyance" the implementation of the new rule. In an announcement posted on its website January 30, the embassy said all foreign employment matters "will be done as before the issuance" of Memorandum Order No. 4.

PANGASINAN Rep. Jose de Venecia will no longer have to contend with long line of congressmen waiting for the quarterly release of their pork barrel allocations once he is replaced as Speaker by Davao City Rep. Prospero Nograles.

And his critics are getting a rush.

"Di ba tamang tama? Year of the rat ngayon, so dagang bukid na siya," Nueva Ecija Rep. Edno Joson, an independent, said in jest.

The tedious process of getting their congressional allocations and allowances was among the long list of complaints of congressmen belonging to the "reform bloc."