‘Serge’s filibustering cost taxpayers P3 million a day’

Each day the Senate is unable to buckle down to work due to one member’s filibustering costs Filipino taxpayers around P3 million, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said yesterday.

Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin said the 24-member Senate has an allocation of "at least P1 billion" as contained in the proposed 2002 budget.

Boncodin said the filibustering of Sen. Sergio Osmeña III can be calculated in terms of the Senate’s lost man-hours as the chamber is prevented from conducting its business of legislation.

"That means perhaps P90 million a month. So if it is about P90 million, if there are 30 days, it is about P3 million a day," Boncodin calculated.

Osmeña rambled on with his uninterrupted talk for three days last week as a signal of the opposition’s protest over the decision of Senate President Franklin Drilon to allow Senate President Pro Tempore Manuel Villar and Majority Leader Loren Legarda to head two committees each.

Opposition senators argued that this violated the chamber’s rules and traditions. Osmeña, however, promised to stop his filibustering if Villar and Legarda refuse these extra posts.

Osmeña’s antics have led the majority to walk out of the session hall.

Public opinion was raised yesterday over the one-man ramble of Osmeña when the DBM secretary was asked to respond to queries during an early morning radio program over dzMM co-hosted by former Economic Planning Secretary Solita Monsod.

Monsod, who ran for the Senate last May but lost, has started co-anchoring the former radio program over ABS-CBN dzMM of Noli de Castro, the topnotcher in the senatorial elections. – Marichu Villanueva