The Philippines' leading firearms lobby on Sunday said it backed a government campaign to clamp down on illegal guns following a spate of high-profile deaths this year.

The U.S. would be allowed to station forces at military bases in the Philippines if it went to war with North Korea, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said Saturday citing a treaty between the allies.

The Philippines' powerful Catholic Church is to ask Filipinos to vote candidates who support birth control out of office in the May elections, a Church official said Saturday.

Environmental officials filed a poaching complaint Wednesday against 12 Chinese fishermen who were aboard a vessel that ran aground this week in a protected coral reef in the southwestern Philippines.

The Philippines will ask the United States to pay 58 million pesos (US$1.4 million) in compensation for damage caused by a U.S. warship to a protected coral reef, the manager of the reef said Saturday.

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino troops began annual military exercises on Friday that the Philippines said were vital to building its defense capabilities to face the rising threat of China.

A group of Myanmar Muslims beat eight Buddhists to death at an Indonesian detention center Friday after becoming enraged at news of deadly communal violence in their homeland, officials said.

A Philippine government body said Thursday it would investigate an allegation that the eldest daughter of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was the beneficiary of a secret offshore trust.

Government representatives and the Philippines' largest Muslim separatist group began drafting legislation on Wednesday to end 40 years of conflict and set up an autonomous structure to run the poor, but resource-rich, south.

The Philippines Sunday welcomed the removal of a U.S. minesweeper that had been stuck on a protected coral reef for 10 weeks, but stressed that compensation must be paid for the environmental damage.