By DANNY O,. SAGUN

THE plot to assassinate House Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. and his son, Joey, are not imagined as claimed but for real, the speaker’s lawyer said Thursday.

Atty. Raul Lambino said he personally heard the story from the source, retired General delos Santos, who narrated the plot to the De Venecias themselves. The speaker’ swife, Georgina, was also around when the retired general bared the plot to the targets, according to him.

Lambino told a radio interview that Delos Santos first told him about the plot, allegedly hatched by two former ranking police officials who are now in the Cabinet of President Arroyo - transportation and communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza and Land Transportation Office chief Reynaldo Berroya.

The two officials and Delos Santos were classmates at the Philippine Military Academy and held sensitive positions in the military and the police.

Delos Santos reportedly urged the De Venecias to beef up their security in the wake of such plot.

A retired colonel who is a protege of Mendoza and now a ranking prison official was involved in the plot by using prisoners as assassins, revealed Lambino quoting Delos Santos.

But the retired general denied the story attributed to him later. Obviously, he got himself in an awkward situation when the young De Venecia reported the matter to the police after learning of the plan.

Lambino said that he himself did not agree with what Joey had done noting the sensitivity of the matter which, he pointed out, was revealed to him and his father in confidence.

Joey might have other things in mind aside from the fact that he had his own lawyers, Lambino observed however.

The young De Venecia, it will be recalled, served as the prime witness in the Senate hearing on the controversial broadband deal with ZTE Corporation of China.

In the hearing, the young De Venecia bared that First Gentleman Miguel Arroryo had warned him to back off from the deal. He also accused resigned Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos of offering him millions of bribe money for him to drop his own bid.

In subsequent hearings, he practically linked not just Mike Arroyo but the President herself as having abetted the bribe move. .

Joey, thru his First Amsterdam Holdings, offered to undertake a broadband project without any expense on the part of government.The ZTE project, on the other hand, was to be funded by a loan with the Chinese government. DOTC favored the ZTE proposal.

President Arroyo, faced with a growing uproar over the bribe issue subsequently scrapped the deal.

Her relations with the Speaker has since turned sour as a result. Reports said the opposition was courting the Speaker to their side in its bid to pursue another impeachment try against the President.