Two female suicide attackers who carried out a double bombing in the southern Philippines were the widows of militants who had worked for the Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf group, the army chief said Wednesday.The pair blew themselves up in a coordinated attack on Jolo island in Muslim-majority Sulu province on Monday, killing or wounding scores of security forces and civilians in the country's deadliest attack this year.The death toll from the blasts has risen to 15 with 74 wounded, th

At least 14 people were killed and 75 wounded - including members of the security forces and civilians - in twin bombings Monday involving a suicide attacker on a southern Philippine island that is a stronghold of Islamist militants, officials said.The apparently coordinated attacks happened in Jolo in Muslim-majority Sulu, where government-backed security forces have long been fighting the Abu Sayyaf group.Seven soldiers, a police officer, and six civilians were killed in the two bombings, t

Corruption in the Philippines is not something novel as the coronavirus that is plaguing the country and the world at large. It is rather an endemic, deep-seated, and deep-rooted virus that has afflicted the country since time immemorial.

The Philippines accused China's coast guard Friday of illegally seizing fishing equipment near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, sparking a fresh spat with Beijing.Scarborough Shoal, one of several reefs controlled by China, is one of the region's richest fishing grounds and a flash point between the two countries.The Philippine foreign ministry said it has lodged a diplomatic protest over the "illegal confiscation" by the Chinese coast guard in May of floating devi

At least one person was killed and dozens injured when a 6.6-magnitude earthquake shook the central Philippines on Tuesday, sending residents fleeing their homes and damaging buildings and roads.The shallow quake struck southeast of Masbate Island in the Bicol region at 8:03 am (0003 GMT), the United States (US) Geological Survey said."There are a lot of damaged houses," said Staff Sergeant Antonio Clemente in Cataingan, a town of about 50,000 people on the impoverished island sever

Forced off the road by coronavirus lockdowns, Philippine "jeepney" driver Daniel Flores now plies the streets of Manila on foot begging for money to feed his hungry family.The 23-year-old has not picked up a passenger since March when public transport was halted and people ordered to stay home as President Rodrigo Duterte's government tried to slow the fast-spreading contagion.Jeepneys - first made from leftover US jeeps after World War II - are a national symbol in the Philipp

It seems that instead of de-escalation, the bilateral relations between the world’s two largest economies has gone from bad to worse following the recent visit of Alex Azar, the United States (US) Secretary of Health and Human Services to Taiwan; the imposition of economic sanctions on the 11 current and former Chinese officials including Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam over the imposition of a new national security law in Hong Kong; Washington’s banning of the Chinese social media app

Philippine security forces were on alert Saturday for possible reprisal attacks after arresting a key leader of an Islamic State (IS)-linked militant group accused of kidnapping and beheading several foreigners.Abduljihad Susukan, a member of Abu Sayyaf, was detained in the southern city of Davao and flown to the capital Manila on Friday, where he was being held at the national police headquarters.He has been charged with 23 murders, five kidnappings and six attempted murders, a police statem

The Philippines delayed Friday the start of the school year by another six weeks to October as the country battles surging coronavirus infections and prepares to turn classrooms into quarantine facilities.Schools across the archipelago have been shut since mid-March when President Rodrigo Duterte's government imposed a months-long lockdown in a bid to slow the fast-spreading contagion.The academic year usually starts in June but was pushed back to 24 August.It is now scheduled to begin o

The Philippines will begin large-scale human testing of Russia's coronavirus vaccine in October, but President Rodrigo Duterte will not receive the inoculation until regulators guarantee its safety, his spokesman said Thursday.Duterte had offered himself up as a guinea pig for the very first jab, expressing "huge trust" in the vaccine, despite growing scepticism about its effectiveness.But his spokesman Harry Roque said the president was scheduled to receive the vaccine no earl