IT’S, as the thriller paperback authors would put it, a cliff-hanger.

Tonight — or tomorrow – we’d know if our very own, Speaker Joe de Venecia, the master of compromises and coalitions, has not lost his magic touch on his rowdy group of Housemen.

We have no doubt he’’ll get his fifth term as Speaker of the House. All those reports about his tottering campaign for the post and shifting of loyalties against him will all prove to be just empty talk when this is all over.

They can never produce another Joe de V in that chamber, to be frank about it; that’s the long and short of it. That line about him having brought the House to its deepest muck and thus, as his rivals are quick to (but half-wittedly) point out, needs to be replaced is as much an indictment of the leadership as it is an indictment of the members. Takes two to tango. You point a finger, two of your other fingers point at you.

The fact is, House of Representatives by its very nature, is a place for horse-trading. It is not heaven on earth; it is not a piece of Mt. Olympus. Men, not gods, rule it and inhabit it. Men you and us elected. Ordinary men who walk among us one moment and whom we place in a pedestal the next in a process called “democratic election.”

They err, they deal, they wheel in the course of putting together legislation. But what similar chamber in countries all over the world does not? If they kept to their saintly halos or their pious homilies, they’d be comprising a Vatican, not a Legislature.

Until we come to the next century era where robots come to rule us in a futuristic scenario (Transformers, the Movie?) and come close to an incorruptible corps of public servants, we cannot but live with Congress and all its imperfections – both programs and individuals.

Whether we agree or not – we are them. In more ways than one. So what’s all the fuss?