BY WENDELL VIGILIA

CONGRESS resumes session today with speculation on the ouster of Speaker Jose de Venecia refusing to die down.

De Venecia’s camp dismissed earlier reports that the Speaker is on his way out.

They said the plot being hatched by former majority leader and now Davao Rep. Prospero Nograles (Lakas) to unseat the Speaker was thwarted after President Arroyo on Saturday ordered Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to instruct the majority to keep De Venecia in power.

Arroyo gave the orders while she was in Switzerland. She is expected to return tomorrow.

"The President is standing by me," the Speaker said in a press statement Saturday.

Majority leader Arthur Defensor said: "The President is still supporting the leadership of Speaker de Venecia. There will be no fireworks on Monday (today)."

Defensor said Lakas and Kampi (Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino) congressmen were told "to preserve the unity within the majority coalition so that we could concentrate on economic reforms."

Nograles denied he was spearheading efforts to remove De Venecia.

But Nograles admitted he is ready to assume the House leadership if he is backed by the majority.

"Like what I have been saying, the position of the Speaker is every congressman’s dream. I will be hypocritical if I will say that I am not interested (in the position of De Venecia)," he said.

A source from the Mindanao bloc said the plan to replace De Venecia is "very much alive and is still far from over."

The source said deputy speaker for Visayas Raul del Mar of Cebu and Rep. Monico Puentevella of Bacolod are also eyeing the speakership in case they are tapped by Malacañang.

Leaders of coalition allies Liberal Party and Nationalist People’s Coalition have said they would support the President if her rift with De Venecia reached the plenary.

The threats to De Venecia’s speakership stemmed from the accusation of his son Joey, co-owner of Amsterdam Holdings Inc., before the Senate that presidential spouse Jose Miguel Arroyo had bullied him into backing out of the $329 million national broadband deal with China’s ZTE Corp.