Philippines

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A strong earthquake set off landslides and damaged buildings in the northern Philippines on Wednesday, killing at least five people and injuring dozens. In the capital, hospital patients were evacuated and terrified people rushed outdoors.

The 7-magnitude quake was centered in a mountainous area of Abra province, said Renato Solidum, the head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, who described the midmorning shaking as a major earthquake.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vowed to considerably ease poverty, boost economic recovery and defend the country’s territory in his first key policy speech Monday that avoided contentious issues like human rights and pervasive corruption.

Amid soaring costs of living following the coronavirus pandemic and the global fallout from the Ukraine war, Marcos Jr. said “we can no longer afford another lockdown.”

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A gunman opened fire on university campus in the Philippine capital region on Sunday, killing a former town mayor and two others in a brazen attack ahead of a graduation ceremony, police said.

The suspect was armed with two pistols and a silencer and was captured in a car he commandeered trying to escape the Ateneo de Manila University in suburban Quezon City, police said. He was blocked by witnesses and authorities outside the university gates.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and warned that Washington is obligated to defend treaty ally Philippines if its forces, vessels or aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters.

MANILA, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos has tested positive for COVID-19, Press Secretary Rose Beatrix Cruz-Angeles said Friday.

Angeles told a press conference that Marcos, 64, has tested positive in an antigen test for COVID-19. "He has a slight fever, but he is otherwise okay," she said.

Angeles said the presidential management staff is currently informing those in close contact with Marcos to observe their symptoms per the protocol. Marcos' wife and children were not exposed.

MANILA, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Philippine Foreign Secretary Luis Enrique Manalo agreed here on Wednesday that their countries will further enhance friendship and mutual trust, adhere to good-neighborliness and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation.

MANILA, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) said on Monday that the number of dengue cases recorded from Jan. 1 to June 18 this year was 58 percent higher than the cases recorded in the same period last year.

The DOH said 239 people have died from the mosquito-borne disease so far.

The Central Luzon region, north of Manila, recorded the highest cases of 6,641, followed by the Central Visayas region in central Philippines with 6,361, and the Zamboanga Peninsula in southern Philippines with 4,787.

MANILA, July 2 (Reuters) - In one of his first legislative acts, newly-inaugurated Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has vetoed a bill sponsored by his lawmaker sister that would have created a special economic zone north of the capital, the presidential office said on Saturday.

Marcos, 64, who took office on June 30 after winning the May election by a landslide, has inherited over $200 billion in government debt driven by his predecessor's pandemic response and the impact on the economy.

MANILA, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos was sworn in as the 17th president of the Philippines on Thursday at the National Museum in Manila in front of thousands of people who witnessed the inauguration.

The 64-years-old son of former President Ferdinand Marcos, wearing a native Barong Tagalog formal shirt, took his oath of office as his 92-year-old mother Imelda and family members look on.

After taking the oath of office, Marcos delivered a brief speech and called on the nation to unite.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — When Emily Soriano recounts how her 15-year-old son was gunned down with four friends and two other residents while partying in a Philippine slum six years ago, she weeps in grief and anger like the massacre happened yesterday.

Police concluded at the time that the bloodbath in a riverside shantytown in Caloocan city in the Manila metropolis was set off by a drug gang war. But Soriano angrily blamed four plainclothes police officers and the brutal anti-drug crackdown of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte for the 2016 killings.