Manila  - The Philippines' inflation rate fell to 6.4 per cent in March as prices of food and other basic commodities eased, the government said Tuesday.

The March index was down from 7.3 per cent in February and was the same level as in March 2008, the National Statistics Office said.

The office said inflation decelerated "as slower annual inflation rates were registered in the indices of all commodity groups," such as food, electricity and fuel.

Manila - Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged the Philippine government to investigate and dismantle an alleged "death squad" that has killed more than 800 people in the past decade in one of the country's most prosperous cities.

The New York-based rights watchdog warned that police officers and local government officials appeared to be involved in the targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals and even street children in Davao City, 990 kilometres south of Manila.

Zamboanga City, Philippines  - Philippine police on Monday filed criminal complaints against seven people, including three police officers, for allegedly providing support to Muslim militants holding captive two European Red Cross workers.

The suspects, who also included two village captains and two civilians, were among dozens of people rounded up last week on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, on suspicion of being supporters of al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels.

Zamboanga City, Philippines - Three people were killed and seven wounded Monday when gunmen attacked a truck owned by a rubber plantation cooperative in the southern Philippines, police said.

The ambush occurred in Lantawan town in Basilan province, 900 kilometres south of Manila, said Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar, provincial police commander.

Macapantar said four of the wounded were in critical condition and rushed to hospital in Isabela City.

He said police still have no suspects and were investigating the ambush.

Manila  - Philippine authorities Sunday rejected fresh demands by Muslim militants for government forces to withdraw from a wide area of a southern island where the rebels were holding captive two European Red Cross workers.

The al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebel group also renewed their threat to kill the two hostages - Swiss Andreas Notter and Italian Eugenio Vagni - unless troops pulled back from their jungle hideout on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila.

Zamboanga City, Philippines  - Two people were killed when an improvised bomb exploded outside a fast-food restaurant in a southern Philippine city, a provincial police chief said Saturday.

Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar said eight more people were injured in the explosion that occurred late Friday in Isabela City in Basilan province, 900 kilometres south of Manila.

Macapantar said a man and a woman passing by when the bomb exploded had died.

"They were killed on the spot," he said.