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The Cost of Peace: BJE MOA on AD

• Beginner’s Guide to Understanding the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) MOA-AD
• Let’s Begin
• Of BJE MOA-AD, ARMM Polls and Oil Price Updates
• Fragile Peace? Say It Isn’t So.
• Slow Progress is Still Progress.
• Winners and Losers
• Where Do We Go From Here?
• So You Think She Can Dance?
• Actually, We’ve Been Dancing the ChaCha re: BJE MOA
• The Buck Stops Here
• A Change of Pace on the BJE MOA: Other Avenues of Peace
• Deferred Peace is Expedited War
• There’s No Turning Back
• There’s No Easy Way: Peace and Its Price

So, it’s not a “done deal” yet — insofar as the government is concerned, although the MILF Vice-chair for Political Affairs claims otherwise. Presidential Peace Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. even calls it a mere “meeting of minds” and “initialing of documents” so as to preserve its authenticity.

Oral arguments in the Supreme Court are scheduled on August 15, Friday. The BJE MOA is expected to be staunchly defended by Rodolfo Garcia, chair of the government panel.

Meantime, we are nearing the ARMM elections and it seems that all is quiet. I don’t know if this has anything to do with our attention being currently diverted to this BJE MOA issue. But that article emphasize that it has more to do with most candidates running uncontested and for those with rivals — them being geographically apart, thus the less incidence for a more “contact” kind of fight. This — considering how immensely deliberated and challenged the JBE is, sounds like good news. One less thing to worry about for the government, I suppose. Also, due to the Senate’s inaction on the matterm, there seems to be a very slim chance that a postponement on the elections will happen as requested by the MILF relative to the BJE MOA.

Director General Avelino Razon Jr. urged critics of the BJE MOA not to “talk of war” or set the stage for such. Arroyo on the other hand has ordered The Armed Forces to be vigilant at all times. She has left for China this morning for the Beijing Olympics.

This forces us all to sink into a wait-and-see mode as we wait for developments to happen.

As a side note, there’s been an announcement by Eastern Petroleum that they will be implementing a rollback in the price of gasoline by 1 peso per liter which takes effect 6AM tomorrow, August 8. — this is good news! Let’s us expect and hope other oil companies to follow suit since oil price in the world market has been dropping — now at USD118 per barrel from the previous USD147 high in July. At least now, we are feeling the ripple effect.

Suggested Further Reading:

• Slow Progress is Still Progress.
• The Case of the “Ex”
• Fragile Peace? Say It Isn’t So.
• So You Think She Can Dance?
• Who among the presidentiables will be bad for the economy?