Zamboanga City, Philippines  - A suspended provincial jail warden was shot dead Monday in a southern Philippine island, where Muslim militants are holding captive three staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), police said.

Jajulie Jupakkal was attacked in Jolo town on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, according to Senior Superintendent Julasirim Kasim, a provincial police chief.

Kasim said Jupakkal suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died on the spot.

Manila  - US tourist Claudia was all agog as she went through boxes and boxes of pirated DVDs of top Hollywood movies and music for sale at a stall in a Manila shopping mall.

Armed with a long list of movies and music DVDs requested by friends back in Los Angeles, Claudia scanned the selection and quickly picked her choices that included Oscar-winning movies Slumdog Millionaire and The Reader.

Cotabato City, Philippines - Six people, including an 8-year-old girl, were killed in an attack triggered by a land conflict in the southern Philippines, a provincial police chief said Friday.

Senior Superintendent Robert Kiunisala said three gunmen barged into the house of the victims Thursday in a village in Tupi town in South Cotabato province, 990 kilometres south of Manila.

The suspects then opened fire on the victims, who belonged to a local tribe, he said.

The victims died instantly from gunshot wounds.

Manila  - Democracy activists took to the streets in the Philippines on Friday to demand more action from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) against Myanmar for its poor human rights record.

The protestors, numbering around 90, picketed the Thai embassy in Manila and urged ASEAN to put Myanmar, formerly called Burma, on the "hot seat" during its annual leaders' summit in Thailand, which started Friday.

"The military regime of Burma has a lot to answer," said Resti Delizo of the Free Burma Coalition-Philippines. "Its human rights record is not showing any degree of significant improvement and ASEAN should not take a blind eye to this issue."

Manila  - A despondent army sergeant killed three of his comrades in a shooting spree inside an army camp in the Philippine capital, an army spokesman said Thursday.

One soldier also was wounded when Sergeant Elias Tial ran amok late Wednesday inside their barracks in Fort Bonifacio in Manila's Taguig City, Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said.

Brawner identified the fatalities as Captain Benito Ramos, First Lieutenant Gerald Fuentes and Master Sergeant Eliseo de la Cruz.

Manila  - A despondent army sergeant killed two of his comrades in a shooting spree inside an army camp in the Philippine capital, an army spokesman said Thursday.

Two soldiers also were wounded when Sergeant Elias Tial ran amok late Wednesday inside their barracks in Fort Bonifacio in Manila's Taguig City, Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said.

Brawner said the suspect, whose father died Saturday, escaped after the incident but the M16 rifle used in the shooting was recovered by his superior.