Good riddance to that ugly bunch of vicious, murderous terrorists!

I’ll shed no tears for the slain Abu Sayyaf gangsters, and neither should our people, whether Muslim, Christian, or whatever creed.

The Police Special Forces and SWAT troopers who went in and shot those armed, unrepentant, terrorists down at Camp Bagong Diwa deserve praise – not blame, as a very few weepy quarters are feebly trying to stir up.

Those hardliners, who had already killed three prison guards, were given a full day and a night to surrender, but they hung tough. They were warned our police teams were going to come in, guns blazing, but they fired back instead. End of story.

When the gunsmoke – and tear gas – cleared, the most notorious kidnappers-killers-and-bombers were dead: the bully Alhamzer Manatad Limbong, alias Bro. "Kosovo" who had been identified by Gracia Burnham as one of their cruel kidnappers, suspected of masterminding the SuperFerry 14 bombing which killed 110 helpless passengers, and triggered off the motorbike "bomb" in Magutay, Zamboanga City, which killed US M/Sgt. Mark Jackson, and seriously wounded US Capt. Mike Hummel in October 2002; Ghalib Andang, alias Commander "Robot" who had led the gang which kidnapped foreign tourists and Filipinos from the Malaysian tourist isle of Sipadan, and raped women hostages repeatedly, humiliating the Estrada government for months and collecting millions of dollars in ransom; and Nadzmi Sabdullah, alias Commander "Global", the noisy spokesman of the Sipadan kidnap caper. Also slain was ASG detainee Hasbi Dais alias Lando, who had conducted the Monday "negotiations" and rejected all the government’s calls for the group’s peaceful surrender.

How many hold-outs were slain? The official figure is 22.

Their families and Muslim leaders were calling yesterday for the bodies of the Muslim prisoners who died in the firefight to be released to them so the dead could be buried immediately according to their custom. (They also wanted to "identify" who had been killed).

Perhaps the government has already handed the remains over by this writing, I’m not certain. The Abu Sayyaf when they tortured, beheaded, and otherwise murdered their victims hadn’t afforded the dead hostages, including a kidnapped priest, the same kind of courtesy.

DILG Secretary Angelo T. Reyes – who was "bypassed" by the Commission on Appointments on the same day, yesterday – is right when he told television and radio: Let’s thank the men who stormed the prison, not pillory them. They risked their lives for us.

* * *

The "Human Rights" commissioners were quick enough to announce they will go in and "investigate" what happened. Well and good if their inquiry is fair and impartial.

But we must remember, when we ululate about "human rights" is that, too often, the inhuman beasts who seek to tear down our civilization with bullet, rocket, bomb and sword, immediately invoke the protection of the very laws of the civilization they’re working to destroy as soon as they’re captured. The Rule of Law is the last refuge of outlaws.

This is where we’re vulnerable as a society. The bleeding hearts always piously declare that we lose the fight if we descend to the level of the barbarians and beasts who fight us. The pragmatists know that if we don’t battle them on their own level, in the dust and the mud, and the suffocating jungle which is their habitat and choice of "killing zone", we cannot hope to win.

So take your pick. Because someday they’ll come for you, on a bus, in a jeepney, and in the LRT, with a bomb in hand and hatred in their hearts.

What must be investigated without let-up or compromise is the disgraceful state of that BJMP prison in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig. The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology is under the Department of Interior and Local Governments, and thereby the ultimate responsibility of Secretary Angie Reyes. General Arturo Alit is the BJMP boss.

What’s no longer a surprise is the fact that conditions at that BJMP detention building which was the scene of yesterday’s violent showdown were disgustingly sloppy. For starters, why were the ASG’s homicidal, bullyboy hardliners, their most hardened leaders, crammed into the same building as ordinary, low-level Abu Sayyaf cadres and suspects, including young teenagers?

Yesterday, I heard National Capital Region Command Police Director Avelino "Sonny" Razon being interviewed on ANC. He told "Top Report" interviewer Carmina Constantino that as early as last December, the police had received reports that "Kosovo" and the other ranking ASG leaders were planning a "jailbreak" – salamabit! – and were trying to get cellphones and weapons smuggled in for that attempt! Gee whiz. Why then did Kosovo, et al, manage to get and use cellphones inside their cells, if the police and BJMP had already been alerted?

The crisis began Monday morning, at 6:30 a.m., when reportedly three jail guards entered the detention cell in which the toughies were quartered, wearing their service sidearms, even one with a rifle. Wasn’t this an invitation to get "jumped" by the prisoners, their weapons seized – and the careless guards slain?

It turns out that, even then, the Abus had their own concealed weapons. How did these ice-picks and firearms get into the ostensibly well-guarded compound? Through "conjugal visitors" – if any?

Prison breaks occur so frequently, it’s a wonder security hasn’t been tightened up – till now. If we executed a few jail wardens and guards for being remiss or for conniving with escapes, I’ll bet there’ll be no more prison "escapes." However, for this writer to even make that suggestion makes me sound bloodthirsty.

Why, we cannot even enforce the "death penalty" on the 2,000 prisoners already on Death Row – signed, sealed, and convicted. Remember what Press Secretary Toting Bunye retorted when Malacañang was tweaked for having granted a stay of execution for several Death Row convicts slated for the lethal injection chamber? Secretary Bunye, perhaps trying to sound humorous, cracked that having to live inside our rotten prisons is a worse fate than death! Why? Because, he explained, prison conditions are so miserable, food allotments on such an inadequate level, that it’s simply hell to be locked away in one of our jails.

Don’t you think it’s cause for shame that our prisons are so awful – overcrowded, reeking of filth and disease, food rations down to starvation level? We must not brag about them.

Into those dungeons and crumbling, stinking hell-holes go even the youngest offenders, lumped together with recidivists, ghouls, and hoodlums. Every one of them comes out a hardened criminal, angry at the world, bent on revenge, or a rampage of depravity.

No, Sir. When our prisons are a breeding ground for more evil, then better the death chamber. At least, we’d be rid of the scum, who would never get another chance to murder, rape, kidnap and torture – or push drugs – again.

Has Capital Punishment failed to curb crime? You bet. Because the "death penalty," with very few exceptions, has never been applied.

* * *

Now that President GMA has signed the Year 2005 budget in toto, with no line items vetoed, the government will begin to cast about more desperately for the money to finance it.

Our senators and congressmen have promised to pass the Value Added Tax (VAT) measure, still to be reconciled in the "bicameral" before Congress adjourns for its recess this Friday.

But now warning, as forcefully as I can express it.

It’s obviously Malacañang’s hope that the present Value-Added Tax measures will create "a consensus early and strong enough to hurdle the issue of domestic and international confidence… and create a climate that will lead to more investments, jobs, security and vital services for our people."

With the latest committee reports coming out of both the house and senate ways and means committees all those laudable aims look merely like nice but empty words.

Firstly, almost one-half of the estimated P55 Billion in new VAT revenues is supposed to come from an extremely misguided intent to impose the tax on the power sector.

As I’ve said in a previous column, not only will this raise Philippine electricity rates, already one of the highest in Asia, it will also endanger government attempts to privatize the capsizing National Power Corp. (NAPOCOR). Everybody knows that a top priority is to get rid of the state-owned power firm that is the single biggest cause of our public sector deficit today, amounting to hundreds of billions of pesos!

If we’re under the notion that the VAT revenue measures will "create a climate that will lead to more investments" why have all the foreign business chambers jointly issued a strong and unqualified statement raising the alarm bells against imposing VAT on the power sector? It’s because anyone thinking straight knows all too well that this would be a death knell for new investments not only in the power sector but also for electricity-hungry manufacturing industries. We’ll instead end up with a moribund economy conjoined with a shriveling tax base.

To solve this problem of triggering sky-high power rates some congressmen in the lower house have come up with an even more ludicrous insertion: a provision that tries to prohibit pass-thru of the VAT by power producers to electricity consumers. And they’re calling it a "pro-poor" insertion? Talk about treating a migraine by hitting your head with a hammer! It’ll only feel much worse in the morning.

To begin with, any economist will tell you that there is no such thing as a tax that doesn’t ultimately find its way to consumers of that item. Whether it’s a direct or indirect tax. Raise the income tax on SM Megamalls and it surely finds its way into the cost of a T-shirt you buy there. There’s no going around that principle.

Let’s face it: Trying to force power producers to "eat the tax" is foolish. Attempting to do it will be downright confiscatory and I’ll be very surprised if it doesn’t violate our Constitution.

At any rate it would simply destroy the prospect of attracting already wary investors back into our power industry – whether to buy NAPOCOR assets or to build new plants. This would be especially felt at the precise time that we need billions of dollars to come in and build generating plants to avert terrible brownouts again in the next few years, like the ones we experienced in the Cory Aquino Administration.

Secondly, VAT is by nature an indirect tax meant to form part of consumer expenditures. Part of why it works is because the tax is meant to be passed on from one producer to another attracting a tax on only the value that’s added along different parts of the chain until it ultimately reaches the end-consumer. It has a self-policing feature to it where everyone would want to ensure that transactions earlier in the chain are reported to the taxman and fully documented with receipts to allow themselves the ability to recover their own input VAT payments.

In other words, VAT is meant to be passed on to consumers. That’s at the heart of what makes it work in the countries that have implemented it consistently and successfully. Following the same logic then, if we do not wish to see the price of an item like electricity increase then the best way is simply to keep it zero-rated.

I think it’s about time the country stopped day-dreaming and snapped awake to grim reality. If we’re serious about tackling the government deficit once and for all we need to train all our guns on the biggest culprits first.

It’s common knowledge that the NAPOCOR accounts for fully a third of the consolidated public sector deficit. That’s why we should be moving heaven and earth to get this white elephant privatized, and fast.

However, the latter will be difficult, if not impossible, if we don’t bring their rates more in line with the true costs of producing power. Private investors will always be wary of participating in a market that’s artificially priced. P0.98/kwh was granted to NAPOCOR in September but many realize at least another P0.85/kwh is still needed.

Can that tough step be taken if legislators pre-empt that with a VAT that raises rates by P0.40-60/kilowatt-hour?

The President asked our legislators to "bite the bullet" in her last State of the Nation (SONA) speech. They can’t even seem to be able to find the bullet to bite.