Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Thursday ordered agriculture and health officials to closely monitor an outbreak of an Ebola virus strain in several pig farms in three northern provinces.

Deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez said Arroyo wanted agriculture authorities to prevent the Ebola Reston virus from spreading to other pig farms in the country.

Golez, a medical doctor, assured the public that the Ebola Reston virus found in the pigs was not harmful to humans.

Manila - Three men were killed when they were struck by falling rocks while panning for gold in a southern Philippine province, police said Thursday.

The accident happened on Wednesday on a creek in Compostela town, Compostela Valley province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, said police Senior Superintendent Ronald Dela Rosa.

Dela Rosa, the provincial police director, said the bodies of the victims were recovered Thursday.

Manila  - The Philippine Supreme Court has set aside a fund to reward people who can provide information leading to the capture and conviction of killers and attackers of Filipino judges, a court official said Thursday.

Justice Presbitero Velasco, chairman of the Supreme Court's committee on security, said the high tribunal has approved a one-million peso (23,833-dollar) fund financed by from the Philippine Judges Foundation.

Under the programme, tipsters will be awarded 100,000 pesos for information leading to the identity of suspects in the killing or attacks on judges. Another 100,000 pesos will be given upon conviction.

The reward fund was set up amid unabated attacks on members of the judiciary.

Manila - Pirates have freed 17 Filipino sailors after more than two months in captivity off Somalia, the Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

The Filipinos were kidnapped in the Gulf of Aden on September 21 when heavily armed Somali pirates hijacked the Greek cargo ship MV Captain Stefanos.

Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said the sailors were "safe and in good health" when they were freed on Monday evening. They were headed to Italy and then to Greece, where they would be met by the ship's owners.

"We are coordinating with the owners on their repatriation (to the Philippines)," Conejos said.

Manila  - Hundreds of fans packed a local church in the Philippine capital on Wednesday when boxing icon Manny Pacquiao heard a thanksgiving mass after an upset win against Mexican-American legend Oscar De la Hoya on the weekend.

Pacquiao arrived in Manila before dawn on Wednesday, four days after forcing to submission the 35-year-old De la Hoya, known as the Golden Boy of American boxing, to quit in the eighth of their 12-round fight in Las Vegas on Saturday.

"I hope Manny would give us a few hundred pesos," said 17-year-old Marlon Tapia, who was among hundreds who trooped to Quiapo Church in downtown Manila to welcome Pacquiao. "He is my idol. He is the greatest."

Manila  - A Philippine human rights organization on Tuesday decried unabated political killings and other attacks against leftist activists in the country despite the government's assurances to end the atrocities.

In its annual human rights report, Karapatan said the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had failed to fulfill its promises to the international community that it would protect human rights in the country.