Many evacuees in the dark about BJE, MOA
By Jeffrey M. Tupas
Mindanao Bureau
First Posted 01:52:00 08/19/2008
PIKIT, NORTH COTABATO – Bee-jee-e? What?
The evacuees now staying in various centers in Pikit do not know why there is fighting between government troops and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels.
Except to say that they had to leave or die in the crossfire, many of them said they did not know why they were again staying in the evacuation center.
They did not also know anything about the controversial Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) or the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD), the stalled signing of which was the prelude to the recent clashes that displaced more than 28,000 people.
Muslima Balon, 25, a resident of Barangay Bualan could only arc her brow when asked about BJE and the MOA-AD.
“I heard about it only now,” said the young mother of two children aged 6 and 3.
Her father, Balon Paguiwantay, and mother, Fatima, also shook their heads when asked.
A woman resident of Takepan, who asked not to be named for fear that she would be “picked up” by the military, said she only heard about BJE and MOA-AD on the radio.
“I heard that only in the news. I also don’t know their real meaning. What the radio reports say is that North Cotabato rejects these,” the woman said.
Even Christian evacuees are baffled. Jocelyn Razona said she heard the BJE discussed on the radio. But asked whether she has also heard people – Christians and Moro – discussing BJE, she said no.
“I don’t know,” she said when asked what she thought was the reason for the fighting.
“No civilian knows the reason for the fighting. But if you want to live, you must evacuate when they start fighting,” Samira Totin said.
But those who have an idea about BJE like Belukan Tuga was surprised why it was being opposed, “when the Moro people can have our own area where we can enjoy our right to exercise and practice freely our culture and religion, and where we have our own government.”
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