FORMER House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said yesterday he will not join calls for President Arroyo to resign.

"I want her to co-lead our call for moral revolution. We have to put all of these behind us like St. Paul stricken on the road to Damascus by a blinding shot of light, unseated from his horse," De Venecia said in a chance interview following necrological services at the House for Mountain Province Rep. Victor Dominguez, who died last Friday, a victim of cardiac arrest.

De Venecia said he does not have the right to judge Arroyo, saying that like St. Paul, "we are all great sinners."

The United Opposition will lead a massive rally on Friday to pressure Arroyo to step down in the light of the alleged cover-up by government, police and airport officials on the abduction of Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., the Senate’s witness in the $329-million NBN-ZTE deal.

De Venecia said he believes Lozada was kidnapped.

He refused to implicate the Palace in the kidnapping, but said the perpetrators are those who want to stop Lozada from testifying in the Senate.

Asked what the President could do for her husband Mike to stay away from controversies, he said: "That’s her own internal decision."

De Venecia said it would be best to give the President "a chance."

"This is the time now. Kung hindi wala nang pagasa ito. As I have said, what’s happening in this country, everything is for sale," he said.

De Venecia said he would not switch party affiliation despite meeting last week with former President Joseph Estrada, the titular head of the opposition.

"Well, you know you can be an independent force, you can be a third force, I can stay in Lakas and be a critic just like (US presidential candidates Barack) Obama and Hillary Clinton both in the Democratic Party they criticize each other but you know they do not abandon their principles," he said.

De Venecia said he has accepted his fate that he would be ousted as president of Lakas-CMD. "Well, maraming mga chuchuwa in every organization," he said.

The Lakas national directorate meeting is expected to take up De Venecia’s ouster as party president on Feb. 21.

"You know when you criticize the President in this country, all the kitchen knives are out and the daggers (are) in your back, that’s what every body is experiencing. Why was I ousted as Speaker? It is because my son spoke out to tell the truth in the Senate. All of you know that. Everybody knows that," he said. – Wendell Vigilia