Philippine rescuers raced Tuesday to reach some two-dozen people still feared buried under a building near Manila that collapsed a day earlier in a deadly earthquake, as a powerful second tremor hit the nation.The United States (US) Geological Survey put the second quake – on the central island of Samar – at 6.4 magnitude, stronger than the one that wrought significant damage Monday near the capital in the north.The latest quake sent terrified locals fleeing into the streets, with the authori

A man was nailed to a cross with up to 10 more to follow while barefoot men beat themselves with flails on Good Friday, in a blood-soaked display of religious fervour in the Philippines.Frowned upon by the Church, the ritual crucifixions and self-flagellation in the north of the country are extreme affirmations of faith performed every Easter in Asia's Catholic outpost.Wilfredo Salvador stared at the sky and appeared to mumble a prayer after the slight 62-year-old with wild grey hair and

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has warned Beijing to back off from a disputed island in the South China Sea, warning of possible military action if China "touches" it amid rising tensions over the key waterway.Duterte, aiming to attract trade and investment from the Asian superpower, has mostly withheld his early criticism of Beijing's expansive claims to the sea – a point of regional contention because trillions of dollars of goods pass through it.But as the Philippine m

The Philippines was officially out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Sunday, though the beleaguered tribunal has pledged to pursue its examination of alleged illegal killings in the government's drug war.Under court rules, Manila's withdrawal took force a year after it told the United Nations (UN) that it was quitting the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal, the second nation to do so."The Secretary-General...informed all concerned states that the withdra

Manila has been hit by its worst water shortage in years, leaving bucket-bearing families to wait hours to fill up from tanker trucks and some hospitals to turn away less urgent cases.Taps are dry from four to 20 hours per day in the homes of about half of the Philippine capital's roughly 12 million people due to rolling outages driven by a dearth of rain and inadequate infrastructure."I have learned to take a bath using only seven pitchers of water," Ricardo Bergado said as he

An audit in the Philippines has shown the country uses a "shocking" amount of single-use plastic, including nearly 60 billion sachets a year, a new report said Friday.The report, produced by the NGO GAIA, is part of an effort to collect data on plastic consumption as environmentalists push for government action to reduce plastic waste.It contains eye-popping figures: every day, almost 48 million shopping bags are used throughout the Philippines, adding up to more than 17 billion a y

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday warned the Philippines against letting in foreigners who could "disturb" the country's domestic political stability, as President Rodrigo Duterte's Beijing pivot sparks an influx of Chinese workers.At least 200,000 Chinese have flocked to Manila since Duterte's 2016 election, many of them employed by online gaming firms that cater to Chinese players, a Philippine Senate inquiry was told late last year.Some Filipino

United States (US) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday vowed to defend the Philippines against "armed attack" in the disputed South China Sea, in Washington's starkest warning yet against Chinese claims to most of the strategic waterway.Speaking in Manila after meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Pompeo said Beijing's actions in waters also claimed by the Southeast Asian nation and other neighbours were a threat."China's island-building and mi

Rodgil Flores casts a stern taskmaster's glance as grimacing young women in bikinis stride across one of the mirror-walled studios that is central to making the Philippines a beauty pageant juggernaut. In 17-centimetre (seven-inch) stiletto heels, the students sway their hips between long slow strides, a brutal drill that Flores requires them to repeat in order to make the act of sashaying second nature come pageant time."For crown.