Cotabato City, Philippines  - Three civilians, including a five-year-old boy, were killed in an attack by Muslim separatist rebels in the southern Philippines, police said Friday.

The attack occurred Thursday in Midsayap town in North Cotabato province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, according to town police chief Inspector Renante Cabico.

Cabico said an undetermined number of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels attacked a military outpost in Midsayap and indiscriminately opened fire as they withdrew.

Manila - Philippine share prices rose 3.078 per cent on Friday as investors snapped up bargain stocks on positive economic prospects despite the global financial crisis.

The 30-share composite index of the Philippine Stock Exchange added 59.08 points to close at 1,978.05 from Thursday's finish of 1,918.97.

A total of 1.004 billion shares worth 1.373 billion pesos (28.02 million dollars) were traded.

Gainers led losers 49 to 26, while 47 issues were unchanged.

Manila - Philippine economic managers on Wednesday cut domestic growth forecasts for this year and 2009 amid grim prospects of recession in some of the world's largest economies.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008 was forecast to grow only between 4.1 per cent and 4.8 per cent, down from the government's earlier target of 5.5 per cent to 6.4 per cent.

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya said GDP growth next year was expected to average between 3.7 per cent and 4.7 per cent, from the previous forecast of 6.1 per cent to 7.1 per cent.

Manila - An official of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Wednesday urged South-East Asian countries to prepare programmes to mitigate the negative impact of the global financial crisis on food security.

Purushottan Mudbhary, chief of the Policy Assistance Branch of the FAO regional office, said food supply would not be a problem as production was expected to be "quite good" for the rest of the year and 2009.

But he warned that "the problem is the access."

Manila - More than half of Filipinos distrust Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo amid unresolved political and economic controversies, a survey showed on Wednesday.

According to an October poll by Pulse Asia Inc, 51 per cent of 1,200 respondents nationwide have "small or no trust" in Arroyo, who has been struggling with low ratings for the past three years.

Only 24 per cent have "big trust" on Arroyo, while the rest were undecided, Pulse Asia said.

The distrust rating was down from 57 per cent in October 2007 and 53 per cent in March 2008. The rating was the same in July 2008.

Zamboanga City, Philippines - Two people were killed in a clash between government troops and communist rebels in the southern Philippines, the military said Tuesday.

Major General Jogy Leo Fojas, an army division chief, said the firefight occurred on Monday in Laak town in Compostela Valley province, 930 kilometres south of Manila.

He said the soldiers encountered about 50 communist guerrillas while they were searching for a junior army officer believed abducted by the rebels last week.

One communist rebel and one government militiaman were killed in the two-hour fighting, Fojas said.