Philippines

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has allowed talks about loans and grants from countries that backed a U.N. investigation into his bloody war on drugs to resume, his office said on Wednesday.

A document dated Feb. 27 addressed to all agencies and state-owned firms signed by Duterte’s Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said the suspension on loan and grant negotiations was being lifted.

The document did not provide an explanation nor did Medialdea immediately respond to a request for comment.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A recently dismissed security guard freed dozens of hostages and was subdued by police after walking out of a shopping mall in the Philippine capital on Monday, ending a daylong hostage crisis in an upscale commercial district near the police and military headquarters, officials said.

The former guard at the Greenhills shopping center, identified by police as Alchie Paray, left the mall in San Juan City in metropolitan Manila with the remaining hostages, who were then secured by police. Several others had managed to escape earlier, police said.

MANILA, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has not authorized any new negotiations to forge a new military pact that will replace the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said Sunday.

Panelo reiterated Duterte does not want a new military deal with the U.S., adding that the Philippine leader is determined to terminate the VFA.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine police on Monday surrounded a shopping mall in an upscale section of Manila after a recently dismissed security guard opened fire and took dozens of people hostage, an official said.

Mayor Francis Zamora of the Philippine capital’s San Juan area said the gunman shot one person at the V-Mall. The victim was in stable condition at a nearby hospital.

Zamora said a negotiator was trying to talk to the gunman — a disgruntled former security guard at the shopping complex — inside a mall administration office.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — In a popular Catholic church in the Philippines, nearly half of the pews were empty for Sunday Mass. The few hundred worshippers who showed up were asked to refrain from shaking others’ hands or holding them during prayers to prevent the spread of the virus that started in China.

In Hong Kong, Cardinal John Hon Tong, wearing a mask, announced the suspension of public Masses for two weeks and urged churchgoers to instead watch them online.

14 Feb 2020; MEMO: The Philippines yesterday announced a “total lift” to a ban on sending local household workers to Kuwait.

Philippine labour minister, Silvestre Bello III, told Kuwait’s Al-Qabas that the ban was “lifted permanently,” adding that the decision was made in coordination with the country’s “foreign ministry and the Department of Labour and Employment.”

MANILA, Feb 14 (NNN-Xinhua) — Philippines volcanologists on Friday further lowered the alert level to 2 at Taal Volcano, nearly five weeks since it began spewing ash and steam.

In its latest bulletin, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the condition in the volcano in Batangas province, about 66 km south of Manila, “in the succeeding three weeks has been characterized by less frequent volcanic earthquake activity, stabilizing ground deformation of the Taal Caldera and Taal Volcano Island edifices and weak steam or gas emissions at the main crater.”

MANILA, Feb 13 (NNN-ABN) – Spokesman of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said, Manila’s move to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States “is in the right direction.”

From the point of view of the Philippines, presidential spokesman, Salvador Panelo, said, the decision to terminate the VFA “is a move in the right direction that should have been done a long time ago.”

MANILA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines has officially notified the United States about its termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between Manila and Washington, Philippines's top diplomat said on Tuesday.

"The Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the United States has received the notice of termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement. As a diplomatic courtesy, there will be no further factual announcements following this self-explanatory development," Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin tweeted.

MANILA, Feb 8 (PNA) – Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, wants Foreign Secretary, Teodoro Locsin, to notify Washington, about the intention of Manila to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the United States and the Philippines, Presidential Spokesperson, Salvador Panelo, said, yesterday.

“President Duterte is instructing Executive Secretary (Salvador) Medialdea, to tell Foreign Affairs Secretary Locsin, to send the notice of termination to the U.S. government,” said Panelo in a text message to reporters.