Manila - Government troops have seized a communist rebel training camp in the southern Philippines, a military report said Monday.

The report said the camp was seized over the weekend after hours of fighting in Monkayo town in Compostela Valley province, 930 kilometres south of Manila.

The encampment consisted of several thatch huts that can accommodate about 100 people, at least 20 foxholes and observation posts.

There were no casualties on the government side during the firefight and bloodstains in the encampment indicated the rebels suffered casualties.

More troops have been dispatched to the area to pursue the rebels.

Manila - Before flying back to California after a short vacation in Manila, Raymond Gornis visited the site of a condominium project in the bustling Araneta Center in Quezon City, where he plans to buy a unit.

Gornis, 36, has been shuffling between two jobs as a school teacher and storekeeper in a video store in California for the past four years to save money to invest in properties and to start a small business in his eastern home province of Sorsogon.

Manila - Philippine shares

Manila - A Filipino overseas worker convicted of killing a Saudi Arabian national was executed Tuesday, a senior Philippine official said.

Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said Jenifer Bidoya was beheaded after his death sentence was affirmed by the Saudi Arabia Supreme Court.

Conejos said Bidoya was sentenced to death by the Jeddah Sharia Grand Court in April 2007 for killing a Saudi national guardsman.

Bidoya's execution was carried out despite the appeal for clemency of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to Saudi Arabia King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.

Conejos said the family of the victim refused to forgive Bidoya and insisted on the imposition of the death penalty.

Manila- The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday declared as unconstitutional a territorial deal between the government and Muslim secessionist rebels.

The high tribunal in early August stopped the signing of the agreement that would have expanded the existing autonomous Muslim region in the strife-torn southern island of Mindanao because of questions over its constitutionality.

The deal reached between government peace negotiators and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was eventually scrapped by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Manila - Five people including three children drowned when a boat capsized in the southern Philippines, a regional military spokesman said Monday.