Manila  - The Philippines downgraded on Wednesday its economic growth target for 2009 due to the severe impact of the global slowdown, a senior official said.

Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto said the growth target for 2009 was revised to between 3.7 per cent and 4.4 percent from the previous forecast of between 3.7 per cent and 4.7 per cent.

In 2008, the Philippines' gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4.6 per cent, way below the three-decade high growth of 7.1 per cent in 2007.

Manila - The Philippines' agriculture department has ordered the extermination of some 6,000 pigs afflicted with the Ebola Reston virus, a senior official said Tuesday.

Davinio Catbagan, director of the Bureau of Animal Industry, said the culling of the hogs in a farm in Pandi town, Bulacan province, 35 kilometres north of Manila, will be done within two to three days.

Manila - Five government soldiers and 11 communist rebels were killed in clashes that erupted when troops raided a guerrilla camp in the southern Philippines, an army spokesman said Monday.

One soldier and 12 guerrillas were also wounded in the fighting on Sunday in Quezon town in Bukidnon province, 855 kilometres south of Manila, according to Major Michele Anayron.

Anayron said troops swooped down on a rebel camp in the village of Santa Cruz, triggering a four-hour gunbattle that killed one soldier and five guerrillas.

Manila - Thousands of people in the western Philippines are in danger of losing their livelihoods with the trade in live reef fish bound for expensive seafood restaurants in China facing imminent collapse, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned Monday.

The international environmental group said 60 per cent of all fish taken from the reefs around Palawan province, 600 kilometres south-west of Manila, were now juveniles, a good indication that "it has been highly overfished."

Cotabato City, Philippines - Kidnappers in the southern Philippines freed a Filipino-Chinese businessman and his 10-year-old daughter after ransom was allegedly paid, officials said Monday.

Wilson Tan, 50, and his daughter Jennifer were released by their captors in Talayan town in Maguindanao province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, on Sunday evening.

They were kidnapped just outside their house in nearby Cotabato City on February 19.

Army Colonel Domingo Gubway said that based on unconfirmed reports, the family paid ransom for the release of the hostages.

"There maybe ransom money involved, but we have no idea as to the amount," he said.

Manila - A radio broadcaster was killed Monday by unidentified gunmen in a southern Philippine city, the second journalist to be killed this year, a police report said.

Ernie Rollin was on his way to work when gunmen shot him in the village of Talic in Oroquieta City, 765 kilometres south of Manila, the report said.

The victim was parking his motorcycle at the gasoline station before taking a bus ride to his work when two motorcycle-riding gunmen approached and fired at him. He died on the spot.

Rollin, in his mid-40s, was known for hard-hitting commentaries against graft and corruption in the southern region of Mindanao.