Philippines

MANILA, Nov 6 (NNN-PNA) – A blast on a bus in the southern Philippines, injured at least five people shortly before noon today, a senior military official said.

Major General Roy Galido, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said, the bomb, believed to be an improvised explosive device, went off around 11:30 a.m. local time (0330 GMT), while travelling south-west from Kidapawan City to Tacurong City, on Mindanao island.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains left at least 50 people dead, including in a hard-hit southern Philippine province, where as many as 60 villagers are feared missing and buried in a huge mudslide laden with rocks, trees and debris, officials said Saturday.

DAVAO, the Philippines, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- A China-funded bridge that connects the Philippines' third largest city Davao and a tourist island will help boost tourism and economic growth in the country's southern region, said President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos on Thursday at the project's groundbreaking ceremony.

The ceremony kicked off the construction of the 3.81-km two-way, four-lane Samal Island-Davao City Connector Bridge that will ease the access for tourists to the Island Garden City of Samal.

COTABATO, Philippines (AP) — Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains swamped a southern Philippine province, killing at least 42 people, leaving 16 others missing and trapping some residents on their roofs, officials said Friday.

Most of the victims were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in hard-hit Maguindanao province, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region run by former guerrillas.

MANILA, Oct 27 (NNN-PNA) – A 6.4-magnitude quake that hit the northern Philippines late Tuesday night, injured at least 36 people and damaged buildings, the military said, yesterday.

Lt. Col. Elmar Salvador, spokesperson of the military’s northern command, said, the injured are from the Ilocos Norte and Abra provinces on the main Luzon island.

He said, no one died but the earthquake damaged several houses, century-old churches, school buildings and hospitals.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A strong earthquake rocked a large swath of the northern Philippines, injuring at least 36 people and forcing the closure of an international airport and the evacuation of patients in a hospital, officials said Wednesday.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said Tuesday night’s magnitude 6.4 quake, which was set off by movement of a local fault, was centered 9 kilometers (5 miles) northwest of Lagayan town in Abra province at a depth of 11 kilometers (7 miles).

MANILA, Oct 24 (NNN-PNA) – A Korean Air plane, carrying 173 passengers and crew members, overshot the runway, in the Philippines’ Cebu province late last night, forcing authorities to close the airport indefinitely.

The Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA), said in a statement early today that, the Airbus A330 from Seoul, South Korea, landed at 11:11 p.m. local time (1511 GMT) last night and overshot the runway, in a landing attempt during heavy rains, when the accident occurred.

MANILA, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- An offshore earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3 rattled Surigao Del Sur province in southern Philippines late Saturday night, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.

The institute said the quake, which occurred at 11:14 p.m. local time, hit at a depth of one km, about 68 km northeast of Marihatag town.

The institute said the tectonic quake will trigger aftershocks but will not cause damage.

The Philippines has frequent seismic activity due to its location along the Pacific "Ring of Fire." 

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — At least 133 lawyers have been killed in the Philippines since the 1980s in work-related attacks, nearly half of them in the last six years during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s turbulent term, a prominent group of lawyers said Saturday.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers also said that harassment of lawyers and judges in the Philippines has continued under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in June, despite alarms raised by the country’s Supreme Court and international watchdogs.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine police killed three detained Muslim militants linked to the Islamic State group after they staged a jail rampage Sunday that saw a police officer stabbed and a former opposition senator briefly held hostage in a failed escape attempt from the maximum-security facility in the police headquarters in the capital, police said.