Philippines: 'Hey, Let's Give Them a State'

This is a really bad idea if you ask me. But nobody's asking, so they'll figure it out eventually.

When it's too late, of course.

The Philippines will hold a plebiscite early next year in more than 700 southern villages to set up an ancestral homeland for Muslims, part of a deal with the country's biggest rebel group, officials said on Thursday.

Hermogenes Esperon, the president's peace adviser, told reporters the proposed Muslim homeland would also be empowered to collect about 75 percent of taxes from oil, mines and fisheries in the area.

He was speaking in Manila a day after government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) negotiators hammered out a deal in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital.

"The government has agreed to grant broader political, social and economic power to the Muslims based on a deal we have reached with the rebels in Malaysia," Esperon said, adding everything that was agreed was within the country's constitution.

"The final political solution will still be negotiated, and, if needed, we will amend the constitution to reflect what was agreed upon with the rebels. It appears we're creating a federal system, but that is not what we have now in our constitution."

The deal would expand the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), an area in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines that was carved out in an agreement with another Muslim rebel group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Esperon said he could not reveal the full details of the deal with the MILF due to the confidentiality of the negotiations, but said it went beyond the earlier agreement with the MNLF.

These people think they can actually draw a bargain with these MILF terrorists, who Reuters lovingly likes to call rebels.

Talk about cutting off your own heads.