Philippines plans to give Muslims autonomous zone
MANILA, Philippines - The president of the overwhelmingly Catholic Philippines proposed Wednesday to give Muslims in the south the ability to run their own government under their own flag, part of a peace plan aimed at ending a four-decade rebellion that has killed 150,000 people.
The draft law submitted by President Benigno Aquino III to Congress fleshes out a peace deal signed in March by the country's largest Muslim insurgent group, the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The autonomous region in the southern island of Mindanao, to be called Bangsamoro, would get its own 60-member parliament that would wield exclusive power over such areas as agriculture, trade, tourism and education.
