US spy plane could join search for Italian priest In Mindanao (tags)
Manila-- Government troops are hard on the heels of the group who seized an Italian priest from a remote village in Zamboanga Sibugay Sunday. Fr. John Carlo Bossi was seized by armed men in Barangay Bulawan in the town of Payao.
Talks with MILF to resume after elections (tags)
Stalled peace talks between the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are to resume after the May 14 elections. Both sides have agreed to work toward a resumption of the talks, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement Thursday. ---BACKED by howitzer and mortar fire, elite Army troops on Thursday seized a makeshift camp of the Moro National Liberation Front in Sulu where nearly 100 Abu Sayyaf extremists were believed to be hiding.
RP Accepts US offer to help solve killings (tags)
The Philippines police will accept technical assistance from the United States to help solve a wave of political murders targeting mostly leftist dissidents, a senior police official said Wednesday. Malacañang, however, was more guarded on the issue. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told reporters the government wants to be “more deliberate.” Ermita said Philippine and US officials are “in contact with each other” but that no decision has been made. A special United Nations Human Rights Commission rapporteur last week alleged that that some in the Armed Forces—one of the most powerful institutions in the country—were behind the unsolved killings, which human-rights groups have said numbered in the hundreds since 2001.