Three journalists in the Philippines have been shot dead just days apart, press groups said Tuesday, as they warned of further media bloodshed without serious government action.

The nation of 100 million people has long been one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists, with powerful figures able to kill critics in the knowledge they will rarely face punishment.

Three Islamic militants were killed after the Philippine military on Friday launched a second attempt in two weeks to rescue hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf rebels, the army said.

About 300 Abu Sayyaf fighters retreated after the hour-long firefight in the jungles of the remote southern island of Jolo, said Brigadier-General Alan Arrojado, the military commander in the area.

The Philippines has asked the U.S. to provide military "assistance" in resupplying and rotating Manila's forces in the South China Sea because they face harassment from regional power China, a military spokesman said Thursday.

The request was made the previous day by Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin in a meeting with Admiral Harry Harris, head of U.S. Pacific Command, according to Colonel Restituto Padilla.

America's Pacific commander held talks with the Philippine military Wednesday on ways to strengthen U.S. capacity in the region to deter conflict and maintain freedom of navigation, a Filipino spokesman said.

Admiral Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, outlined a freshly drafted Pentagon report highlighting issues in the South China Sea, where China is in dispute with the Philippines and other neighbors over islands, reefs and waters, said military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla.

Typhoon Goni killed at least 26 people in landslides and floods in the Philippines, officials said Monday, as the storm bore down on Japan. 

Rescue teams clawed away at a mountainside near the remote mining town of Mankayan in the country's north, after recovering the bodies of 13 miners buried by a landslide that struck the area two days earlier. 

Seven people were killed while thousands fled to higher ground as powerful typhoon Goni brought torrential rains to the northern Philippines, triggering landslides and floods, officials said Saturday.

Six people died in Mountain Province and Benguet in the northern highlands after they were buried in rocks and mud. A man was killed in nearby Ilocos Norte province after he was hit by a falling tree, the national disaster council said in a report.

Two people were killed while thousands were evacuated as powerful typhoon Goni approached the Philippines and Taiwan on Friday, authorities said.

In the Philippine highland town of Itogon, two construction workers died after a landslide buried their roadside tent in rocks and mud. Close to 400 people in flood-prone towns were moved to shelters, police and disaster officials said.

Soldiers clashed with Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremists on two islands in the southern Philippines, leaving 20 of the rebels dead even as fighting continued to rage, the military said Wednesday.

The latest and fiercest battle took place in Indanan town on the southern island of Jolo where troops, seeking to rescue Abu Sayyaf hostages, encountered about a hundred members of the Al-Qaida-linked group, said Brigadier General Alan Arrojado, commander of the island's military task force.

Five communist guerrillas have been killed in a clash with special forces troops in the Philippines, a military spokesman said Wednesday.

The clash broke out Tuesday near the town of Pangantucan on the main southern island of Mindanao, one of several areas where the decades-old New People's Army (NPA) rebellion is still active.

The Philippines said Saturday it had rebuilt a "strong friendship" with former foe Japan, as its neighbours criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for failing to properly apologize for Tokyo's aggression during World War II.

Since the war, Japan had "acted with compassion" which led to a relationship "characterized by trust and unfailing support in so many fields", Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said in a statement.