Cotabato City, Philippines  - A homemade bomb ripped through a passenger bus terminal in a southern Philippine city Sunday, but no one was hurt, police said.

The explosion occurred before dawn at the Husky Bus Terminal in Cotabato City, 960 kilometres south of Manila, according to Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane, city police chief.

Dangane said two buses and a concrete wall were partially damaged by the blast.

"Police investigators are looking into extortion and transport business rivalry as possible motives," he said.

Manila  - Thousands of people marched on Saturday in the Philippine capital to denounce illegal drugs which afflict millions in the country.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and senior government officials led the march along the length of Roxas Boulevard in downtown Manila, which was attended by schoolchildren and government employees.

Organizers of the march hoped to make it to the Guinness World Records bookas the world's first and largest march against illegal drugs.

Manila  - Three international Red Cross staff being held captive by Muslim militants in the southern Philippines were frightened and outraged when government troops clashed with their captors this week in an apparent bid to rescue them.

The hostages - Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba - were hysterical when they talked by phone with Senator Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said Friday.

Manila  - Philippine shares rose 3.

Zamboanga City, Philippines  - One soldier was killed and five were injured in a botched attempt to rescue a kidnapping victim in the southern Philippines, a regional military spokeswoman said Friday.

The fighting erupted Thursday when troops conducting an operation to rescue a kidnapped employee of a lending firm encountered Muslim separatist rebels in Sumisip town in Basilan province, 900 kilometres south of Manila, Lieutenant Esteffani Cacho said.