HOUSE Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. immediately extended the hand of reconciliation to his opponent after a landslide win in the election in the fourth district of Pangasinan.

De Venecia won a third and final term of office with lopsided wins in all parts of the province’s fourth district, namely Dagupan Ctiy, San Fabian, Mangaldan, San Jacinto and Manaoag.

Partial unofficial count as of 10 a.m. Tuesday showed de Venecia garnering 74,708 votes against Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin Lim’s 36,639 votes.

“Well, they say that victory has many fathers and defeat is its orphan. But this really is very true because tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands have all helped to propel my glorious victory,” said de Venecia.

In Dagupan City, de Venecia’s fellow candidates in the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD), former Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr. and former Councilor Belen Fernandez also scored big victories against their respective opponents, Brian Lim, and Vlad Mata, respectively.

Before addressing the media, de Venecia and his wife Gina head thanksgiving mass at their residence celebrated by Fr. Felipe Matias, parish priest of adjacent San Gabriel Parish Church, attended by close supporters and campaign staff, including the barangay captain of Bonuan Binloc, Pedro Gonzales.

e told newsmen that he won by a big margin because the trust and confidence he had with the people of the fourth district of Pangasinan “was built on years and years of hard work, sacrifice and performance.”

“You know, I brought so much infrastructures, schools, markets, hospitals, roads, bridges, scholarships, computer sets, information technology to our district, agriculture and fisheries. All these are bound to pay off and they had paid off,” de Venecia said.

But he nonetheless said: “I ask friends and foes that we now join forces so that we can move our nation forward.”

He reiterated that he will begin to reach out to his enemies, in the same way that he had reached out to the Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the New People’ Army and the forces and the extreme left and the extreme right.

“As president of the Lakas-CMD which we are now developing into a centrist party, we will try to bring all the forces to the center. By being in the center, we can reach out forces of the left and the right,” he said.

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