Former Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez on Monday paid tribute to the late five-time Speaker Jose C. de Venecia Jr., calling him a unifier, a consensus-builder, a thinker, a visionary who was ahead of his time, and a global Filipino.

“There are moments in the life of a nation when words feel small before the magnitude of a life well lived. Today, we gather in this chamber not merely to mourn the passing of former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., but to honor a man whose name has become inseparable from the very story of this House,” Romualdez told his House colleagues led by Speaker Faustino “Bojie” G. Dy III, who hosted a memorial service for De Venecia.

Romualdez, president of Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, of which the late Speaker was a founding father, said the party started as Lakas-Tao, then Lakas-NUCD.

A lawyer from the University of the Philippines (UP), Romualdez said De Venecia Jr. “was a founder, a builder, a unifier.”

“He did not build a party for power. He built a movement for purpose. And in doing so, he helped shape a generation of leaders who believed that governance must be inclusive, reform-driven, and anchored in national unity,” Romualdez said.

He said under De Venecia Jr.’s stewardship for five terms, the House of Representatives “became what it ought to be: a forum where every legislative district—every island, every province, every city—had a voice at the table.”

“He believed that the strength of the Republic was measured not by the dominance of a few, but by the participation of all,” he added.

The former Speaker recalled that in his desire to unify the House, De Venecia Jr. founded the Rainbow Coalition, “a phrase that will forever belong to him.”

“But the Rainbow Coalition was not merely a political strategy. It was a philosophy of governance. It was the recognition that in a democracy as diverse as ours—Christian and Muslim, North and South, majority and minority—progress is achieved not by exclusion, but by consensus,” he stressed.