A suspected motorcycle bomb wounded five people at a drugstore in the southern Philippines on Tuesday, police said.

One of the five casualties, a seven-year-old boy, is in critical condition from the early afternoon blast, said Superintendent Roberto Badian, the police chief of the southern city of Cotabato.

The Philippines' largest Muslim guerrilla group has demanded the government halt any planned oil and gas explorations by foreign companies in vast southern areas they claim, warning Sunday that energy projects would complicate peace talks.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front refused to say what they would do if the government ignores their request.

Dozens of Abu Sayyaf militants killed seven marines and wounded 21 others in one of the fiercest clashes this year that erupted in stormy weather Thursday as the marine platoon was about to attack a terrorist jungle camp, the military said.

About 30 marines maneuvered close to the encampment of more than 50 al-Qaida-linked militants in mountainous Patikul township in southern Sulu province, setting off the pre-dawn gunbattle, regional military spokesman Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang said.

At least 25 people were killed and nine others went missing as a slow-moving tropical storm dumped enormous amounts of rain across the Philippines' main island, authorities said Wednesday.

Nock-ten, named after a Laotian bird, was expected to cause more damage in the mountainous northern areas of Luzon island on Wednesday night, while also bringing heavy rain to Manila, the state weather service said.

The kidnappers of an American woman, her son and Filipino nephew in the southern Philippines have telephoned their family by phone demanding a ransom, officials said Sunday.

At least 14 gunmen seized Philippine-born U.S. citizen Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, her 14-year-old son and 19-year-old nephew Tuesday from a relative's house they were visiting in a village near southern Zamboanga City. They were taken away at gunpoint on board a motor boat, officials said.

Up to 140,000 Philippine workers could lose their jobs in Saudi Arabia due to a domestic helper ban and a program to compel firms to employ more locals, the Filipino labor minister said Thursday.

Between 20,000-50,000 Filipino domestic workers in the kingdom could be hit by Saudi Arabia's decision announced last month to stop granting work permits to Philippine and Indonesian maids, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said.

The Philippines said Friday it would send its ageing navy flagship into disputed South China Sea waters amid rising tensions with Beijing over their competing claims.

However defence department spokesman Eduardo Batac insisted the deployment was a routine assignment and had nothing to do with an announcement by China on Thursday that one of its maritime patrol vessels would pass through the area.

A Filipino blacksmith's son who stopped growing when he was a toddler was declared the world's shortest man Sunday as he celebrated his 18th birthday.

Measuring just 59.93 centimeters, or 23.5 inches, Junrey Balawing is the oldest of four siblings -- the rest all of normal stature -- born in the rural town of Sindangan on southern Mindanao island.

Three people were killed and dozens were missing after a night-time landslide ravaged a small gold mining town in a mountainous area of the Philippines on Friday, authorities said.

The landslide hit at about 3am, ripping through shanty homes while miners and their families were sleeping and destroying poorly constructed tunnels where the unregistered workers extract gold using hand tools, they said.

Tucked in the mist-covered slopes of Mount Makiling, the Philippines' premier public school for the arts is busy molding the country's future cultural ambassadors.

The gifted scholars embark on a rigorous 12-hour daily routine of academic study, music, dance, theatre, visual arts and creative writing at the state-funded Philippine High School for the Arts.