Manila - Japan will extend 9.5 million dollars in rice aid to hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the strife-torn southern Philippine region of Mindanao, a Japanese embassy statement said Monday.

The aid will be in the form of 7,500 metric tons of rice, which will be distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP) to people displaced by fighting between government troops and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels in Mindanao.

Manila - Muslim militants holding captive three staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on a southern Philippine island have been evading pursuing troops by constantly moving their hostages, a police official said Monday.

Director General Jesus Verzosa, national police chief, said government security forces were having a difficult time pinpointing the exact location of the kidnappers on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila.

Manila - Two South Korean nationals were killed in an armed robbery in the Philippines on Monday while two suspects were killed in a shootout with responding police officers.

The South Koreans - Rho Kwang Hyun, 40, and Shin Young Hyun, 51 - were driving in Talisay town in Batangas province, 105 kilometres south of Manila, when a car blocked their path.

Four gunmen from the car then declared a robbery and shot the South Koreans dead after divesting them of their valuables, according to police officer Erwin Ordinario.

Zamboanga City, Philippines - Three Filipino public school teachers were seized Friday by unidentified gunmen off a southern Philippine city, a regional police chief said.

Chief Superintendent Angelo Sunglao said the victims were riding a passenger boat near Zamboanga City, 875 kilometres south of Manila, when the gunmen seized them Friday morning.

Sunglao said the gunmen who were riding on a separate motorized boat, boarded the passenger vessel and seized the three victims.

Manila  - A police officer was killed Friday when communist rebels attacked a town police station in the southern Philippines, a police report said.

The report said about 50 heavily armed communist rebels swooped down on the police station in Carmen town in Agusan del Norte province, 795 kilometres south of Manila.

The rebels outnumbered the police officers in the station and shot one of the police officers in the head.