Truckloads of villagers on Tuesday fled Philippine communities close to the erupting Mayon volcano, traumatized by the sight of red-hot lava flowing down its crater and fearful of sporadic blasts of ash. Nearly 15,000 people have left the mostly poor farming communities within a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) radius of Mayon's crater in northeastern Albay province in forced evacuations since volcanic activity spiked last week. Albay's governor extended the danger zone by a kilometer (more than half a mile) on Monday and asked thousands of residents to be ready to move anytime. Also Read: Philippines’ Mayon Volcano spews lava down its slopes in gentle eruption putting thousands on alert But many opted to flee from the expanded danger zone even before the mandatory evacuation order. "There's lava and ashfall already," Fidela Banzuela, 61, said from a navy truck where she, her daughter, grandchildren and neighbors clambered up after leaving their home in San Fernando village close to Mayon. "If the volcano explodes, we won't see anything because it would be so dark." Her daughter, Sarah Banzuela, fled with her two children, including a 2-year-old who has asthma, which she said could be triggered back by volcanic ash that rained down on their village over the weekend. Also Read: Philippines evacuates people near Mayon Volcano, where more unrest indicates eruption may be coming "There's ashfall already and, at night, there's red-hot lava from the volcano that seems to be moving closer to us," Sarah Banzuela, 22, told The Associated Press. She and her mother arrived at a grade school turned into an evacuation center teeming with other displaced villagers. After days of showing signs of renewed restiveness, including a swarm of rockfalls and a bright-orange crater glow visible at night, Mayon began expelling lava Sunday night, which flowed slowly down two gulleys on its southeastern slope, government volcano experts said. An ash plume that shot up to 328 feet (100 meters) at dawn on Tuesday drifted southeastward with the wind toward some villages, said Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. Also Read: Philippines warns of possible flooding, landslides as Typhoon Mawar slowly passes to north An AP video showed a boulder getting ripped from the side of a dome of lava in Mayon's crater then plunging and breaking into smaller red-hot pieces as it rolled down and smashed onto other stones on the volcano's steep slope. The 2,462-meter (8,077-foot) Mayon is a top tourist draw in the Philippines because of its picturesque conical shape but is the most active of 24 known volcanoes in the archipelago. It last erupted violently in 2018, displacing tens of thousands. In 1814, Mayon's eruption buried entire villages and left more than 1,000 people dead. With its peak often shrouded by wisps of passing clouds, Mayon appeared calm on Tuesday, but Bacolcol told AP that lava was continuing to flow slowly down its slopes but could not easily be seen under the bright sun. The volcano had been raised to alert level three on a five-step warning system last Thursday, meaning a hazardous eruption is possible in weeks or days. The eruption is the latest natural calamity to test the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in June last year and inherited an economy that was shattered by two years of the coronavirus pandemic, which also deepened poverty and unemployment. He has deployed some of his Cabinet officials to Albay to help distribute food aid to and reassure displaced villagers. Liza David Balbin fled with her children to an emergency shelter in Santo Domingo town after she got scared of Mayon's lava emissions and her farming community of San Antonio was hit by ashfall. The 48-year-old housewife said the government should find an effective way of relocating poor Filipinos like her away from volcanoes, mountainsides where landslides are common and coastlines that are lashed by tidal waves. In 1991, Balbin witnessed Mount Pinatubo blowing its top in one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century. The massive ashfall and volcanic mudflows wiped out her village and outlying communities in Pampanga province north of Manila. She survived and years later married a man who took her to his home province of Albay, where they lived in an impoverished village not far from Mayon. "I escaped from Pinatubo then ended up near Mayon volcano," she told AP with a laugh. "Why is my life like this?" "If only we've got money, we would have left that danger zone and built a house far away," said Balbin, who makes a living doing laundry. "Now we're in an evacuation camp again and it's really been a difficult life. This is too much."  

Thousands of American and Filipino forces pummeled a ship with a barrage of high-precision rockets, airstrikes and artillery fire in their largest war drills on Wednesday in Philippine waters facing the disputed South China Sea that would likely antagonize China. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. watched the American show of firepower from an observation tower in the coastal town of San Antonio in northwestern Zambales province — the latest indication of his strong backing of the Philippines' treaty alliance with the U.S. Marcos has ordered his military to shift its focus to external defense from decades-long anti-insurgency battles as China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea become a top concern. The shift in the Philippine defense focus falls in sync with the Biden administration’s aim of reinforcing an arc of alliances in the Indo-Pacific region to better counter China. Also Read: US sails warship through Taiwan Strait after China's drills China has angered the Philippines by repeatedly harassing its navy and coast guard patrols and chasing away fishermen in the waters close to Philippine shores but which Beijing claims as its own. The Philippines has filed more than 200 diplomatic protests against China since last year, including at least 77 since Marcos took office in June. Sitting beside U.S. Ambassador MaryKay Carlson and his top defense and security advisers, Marcos used a pair of binoculars, smiling and nodding, as rockets streaked into the blue sky from the U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, a multiple rocket and missile launcher mounted on a truck that has become a crucial weapon for Ukrainian troops battling Russian invasion forces. The coastal clearing in front of Marcos resembled a smoke-shrouded war zone, which thudded with artillery fire as AH-64 Apache attack helicopters flew overhead. Also Read: US, Philippines hold largest war drills near disputed waters “This training increased the exercise’s realism and complexity, a key priority shared between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the U.S. military,” Lt. Gen. William Jurney, commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, said. “Together we are strengthening our capabilities in full-spectrum military operations across all domains,” said Jurney, the U.S. director for the annual joint exercises called Balikatan, Tagalog for ”shoulder-to-shoulder." About 12,200 U.S military personnel, 5,400 Filipino forces and 111 Australian counterparts were taking part in the exercises, the largest since Balikatan started three decades ago. The drills have showcased U.S. warships, fighter jets as well as Patriot missiles, HIMARS and anti-tank Javelins, according to U.S. and Philippine military officials. The ship targeted by the allied forces was a decommissioned Philippine navy warship, which was towed about 18 to 22 kilometers (11 to 14 miles) out to sea. Smaller floating targets, including empty drums tied together, were also used as targets to simulate a battle scene where a U.S. Marine Corps command and control hub enabled scattered allied forces to identify and locate enemy targets then deliver precision rocket and missile fire. Philippine military officials said the maneuvers would bolster the country’s coastal defense and disaster-response capabilities and were not aimed at any country. China has opposed military drills involving U.S. forces in the region in the past as well as increasing U.S. military deployments, which it warned would rachet up tensions and hamper regional stability and peace. Washington and Beijing have been on a collision course over China’s increasingly assertive actions to defend its vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and Beijing’s goal of annexing Taiwan, by force if necessary. In February, Marcos approved a wider U.S. military presence in the Philippines by allowing rotating batches of American forces to stay in four more Philippine military camps. That was a sharp turnaround from his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who feared that a larger American military footprint could antagonize Beijing. China strongly opposed the move, which would allow U.S. forces to establish staging grounds and surveillance posts in the northern Philippines across the sea from Taiwan and in western Philippine provinces facing the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. China has warned that a deepening security alliance between Washington and Manila and their ongoing military drills should not harm its security and territorial interests or interfere in the territorial disputes. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said that such military cooperation “should not target any third party and should be conducive to regional peace and stability.”

The Philippines said Thursday it was allowing U.S. forces to broaden their footprint in the Southeast Asian nation, the latest Biden administration move bolstering an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan. Thursday’s agreement, which gives U.S. forces access to four more military camps, was announced during a visit by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. He has led efforts to strengthen America’s security alliances in Asia in the face of China’s increasing assertiveness toward Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. “It’s a big deal,” Austin said at a news conference, while noting the agreement did not mean the re-establishment of permanent American bases in the Philippines. In a televised news conference with his Philippine counterpart, Carlito Galvez Jr., Austin gave assurances of U.S. military support and said the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which obligates the U.S. and the Philippines to help defend each other in major conflicts, “applies to armed attacks on either of our armed forces, public vessels or aircraft anywhere in the South China Sea.” “We discussed concrete actions to address destabilizing activities in the waters,” Austin said. “This is part of our effort to modernize our alliance, and these efforts are especially important as the People’s Republic of China continues to advance its illegitimate claims in the West Philippine Sea.” American leaders have long sought to reorient U.S. foreign policy to better reflect the rise of China as a significant military and economic competitor, as well as to better deal with the lasting threat from North Korea. The tensions between China and Taiwan will be high on the agenda next week when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to meet with China’s new foreign minister, Qin Gang. China claims the self-ruled island as its own territory — to be taken by force if necessary — and Beijing has sent warships, bombers, fighter jets and support aircraft into airspace near Taiwan on a near-daily basis, sparking concerns of a potential blockade or military action. The announcement from the Philippines follows a U.S.-Japan declaration on Jan. 11 that those two countries’ militaries would be updating and strengthening their defense posture, as well as other earlier pledges of greater military cooperation from Indo-Pacific partners stretching as far south as Australia. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswomen Mao Ning responded Thursday by accusing the United States of pursuing “its selfish agenda.” “The U.S. has adhered to a Cold War zero-sum mentality and strengthened military deployment in the region,” Mao told reporters at a daily briefing. “This is an act that escalates tensions in the region and endangers regional peace and stability.” U.S. and Philippine officials also said that “substantial” progress has been made in projects at five Philippine military bases, where U.S. military personnel were earlier granted access by Filipino officials. Construction of American facilities at those bases has been underway for years but has been hampered by unspecified local issues. China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, have been locked in increasingly tense territorial disputes over the busy and resource-rich South China Sea. Washington lays no claims to the strategic waters but has deployed its warships and fighter and surveillance aircraft for patrols that it says promote freedom of navigation and the rule of law but have infuriated Beijing. Austin thanked President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whom he briefly met in Manila, for allowing the U.S. military to broaden its presence in the Philippines, Washington’s oldest treaty ally in Asia. “I have always said that it seems to me that the future of the Philippines and for that matter the Asia-Pacific will always have to involve the United States simply because those partnerships are so strong,” Marcos told Austin. Galvez said there was a need for more consultations, including with local officials in provinces where visiting U.S. forces would establish a presence in Philippine military camps. A few dozen leftist activities held a noisy protest Thursday and set a mock U.S. flag ablaze outside the main military camp where Austin held talks with his Philippine counterpart. While the two countries are allies, leftist groups and nationalists have resented and often protested boisterously against the U.S. military presence in this former American colony. The country used to host two of the largest U.S. Navy and Air Force bases outside the American mainland. The bases were shut down in the early 1990s after the Philippine Senate rejected an extension, but American forces later returned for large-scale combat exercises with Filipino troops. The Philippine Constitution prohibits the permanent basing of foreign troops and their involvement in local combat. The countries’ Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement allows visiting American forces to stay indefinitely in rotating batches in barracks and other buildings they construct within designated Philippine camps with their defense equipment, except nuclear weapons. Philippine military and defense officials said in November the U.S. had sought access to five more local military camps mostly in the northern Philippine region of Luzon. Two of the camps where the U.S. wanted to gain access are in Cagayan province near Luzon island’s northern tip, across a sea border from Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait and southern China. Other camps that would host American forces are along the country’s western coast, including in the provinces of Palawan and Zambales, which face the disputed South China Sea. “The Philippine-US alliance has stood the test of time and remains ironclad,” the allies said in their statement. “We look forward to the opportunities these new sites will create to expand our cooperation together.” Austin is the latest high-ranking American official to travel to the Philippines after Vice President Kamala Harris visited in November, in a sign of warming ties after a strained period under Marcos’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte had nurtured cozy ties with China and Russia and at one point threatened to sever relations with Washington, eject American forces and abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement that allows thousands of American forces to come each year for large-scale combat exercises. “I am confident that we will continue to work together to defend our shared values of freedom, democracy and human dignity,” Austin said. “As you heard me say before, the United States and the Philippines are more than just allies. We’re family.” Read more: US, Philippines agree on larger American military presence  

The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday declared unconstitutional a 2005 pact by China, the Philippines and Vietnam to jointly explore for oil in the disputed South China Sea, a decision that also brings other proposed agreements into doubt. The decision by 12 of the court's 15 justices voided the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking agreement by state-owned companies in the three nations, which are among Asian countries locked in decades-long territorial disputes in the busy waterway. Two justices dissented and one was on leave and did not vote. The court did not immediately make public the full decision and only released highlights in a statement. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office in June last year, expressed willingness to revive failed negotiations for joint oil exploration with China in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing last week. The court ruled that the 2005 agreement violated the constitution by allowing the state-owned oil companies of China and Vietnam to undertake joint oil exploration in Philippine waters. The charter specifies that “the exploration, development and utilization of natural resources shall be under the full control and supervision of the state.” The petitioners argued that oil exploration in Philippine waters should be undertaken by Filipino citizens or corporations and groups that are at least 60% owned by Filipinos, according to the court. Proponents argued that the agreement only involved pre-exploration activities which were not covered by the constitutional prohibition. But the court said the accord’s intent “is to discover petroleum which is tantamount to `exploration.’” The agreement led to a joint oil search in 142,886 square kilometers (55,168 square miles) of sea, including waters claimed by the Philippines as part of its territory and other areas it contests with China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Under President Rodrigo Duterte, Marcos’s predecessor, the Philippines signed a 2018 agreement with China aimed at agreeing on terms for a possible joint oil and gas exploration in the disputed waters. But years of negotiations failed, mainly due to disagreement over which side has sovereign rights over the stretch of sea to be covered by the joint search. Duterte’s administration terminated the agreement shortly before his six-year term ended last year. A 2016 ruling by a United Nations-backed arbitration tribunal invalidated China’s extensive territorial claims based on historical grounds in the South China Sea. Beijing did not participate in the arbitration, rejected the decision and continues to defy it.

The acting Philippine defense chief has resigned, officials said Monday, in the latest in a series of top-level changes in the country’s security establishment that has sparked speculation of renewed military unrest. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. accepted “with deep regret” the resignation of defense officer-in-charge Jose Faustino Jr. and offered the top defense post to Carlito Galvez Jr., another retired general who has been involved in peace talks with insurgent groups, presidential spokesperson Cheloy Garafil said. Galvez has accepted the offer, Garafil said without providing other details, including why Faustino, a former military chief of staff, decided to resign. Read: China holds large-scale joint strike drills aimed at Taiwan Marcos on Saturday cut short the term of military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro, whom he had appointed five months ago, and replaced him with a retiring general without explaining the surprise move. Faustino is a supporter of Bacarro and the two were classmates at the Philippine Military Academy. Bacarro received the highest military award for combat bravery as a young army officer and his three-year term was supposed to continue until August 2025. The appointment of military chiefs is a sensitive issue. The military has a history of restiveness, failed coup attempts and corruption scandals, and has faced accusations of human rights violations. Efforts have been made for years to instill professionalism in the military and insulate it from the country’s traditionally chaotic and corruption-tainted politics. Lt. Gen. Andres Centino, a military chief of staff whom Bacarro replaced in August last year, was reinstated by Marcos to the top post of the 144,000-strong armed forces. Centino, who was due to retire next month, was chosen over a dozen senior generals and will have a fresh three-year term. A new law that took effect last year fixed the term of the military chief of staff to three years to allow the top general more time to initiate reforms and press a years-long campaign to modernize the underfunded military, which faces Muslim and communist insurgencies and increasingly aggressive actions by China in the disputed South China Sea, where the Philippines claims contested islands, islets and reefs along with other nations. Read: Philippines seeks to cleanse police force of drug ties Bacarro’s sudden removal sparked speculation of renewed military restiveness after the national police went on alert over the weekend. But national police spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo denied the move was linked to any military restiveness and said personnel were placed on “heightened alert” mainly to secure an annual religious gathering in Manila. In a turnover ceremony at the main military camp in the capital on Saturday, Bacarro handed a saber symbolizing the military’s leadership to Centino. Neither Marcos nor Faustino attended the ceremony. Bacarro’s removal followed a decision by the national police chief, Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr., to tender his resignation on Thursday after Marcos’s interior secretary appealed to nearly 1,000 police generals and colonels to quit to allow a committee to investigate top officials involved in illegal drugs. Azurin asked top police officials to support Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos’s drastic move. But he said some generals opposed the call for them to resign within the month because they were not facing any criminal lawsuits and had not been linked to the drug trade.

The Philippine Embassy in Bangladesh on Friday organized a fun run titled “HuwaRUN: A fun run in support of the campaign to end violence against women" in Baridhara, Dhaka. The event was hosted in line with the global 16-day campaign against gender-based violence and in support of the Philippine government’s goal to protect the rights of women and girls. HuwaRUN is a play on the Filipino word “huwaran” which means role model and “run”. The multi-year campaign, which starts on November 25 and lasts until December 10 every year since 1991, aims to raise awareness on and calls for action for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls. In 2008, this was supplemented by the UN Secretary General’s campaign, UNiTE by 2030 to end violence against women. The three-km route featured banners that highlight milestones that the Philippines has made in advancing the rights of women and the advocacy to end violence against women. Read more: Dhaka seeks pro-active support from Manila, ASEAN for early repatriation of Rohingyas These include joining the Global 16-Day Campaign, the enactment of the “Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act” in 2004, and expansion of the global campaign to 18 days until December 12, the date when the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, was signed in 2000, among others.

A gunman opened fire on university campus in the Philippine capital region on Sunday, killing a former town mayor and two others in a brazen attack ahead of a graduation ceremony, police said. The suspect was armed with two pistols and was captured in a car he commandeered trying to escape the Ateneo de Manila University in suburban Quezon City, police said. He was blocked by witnesses and authorities outside the university gates. The sprawling university was put under lockdown and the graduation rite at the law school on campus was canceled, police said. Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, who was supposed to be a speaker at the ceremony, was advised to turn back en route to the event, officials said. Read:Philippines affirms news site shutdown order: Maria Ressa Newly elected President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. promised to have the attack swiftly investigated and those behind the killings brought to justice. He is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress at the House of Representatives on Monday also in Quezon city, where police and other law enforcers had imposed a gun ban and heightened security before the shooting. “We are shocked and saddened by the events at the Ateneo graduation today,” Marcos Jr. said. “We mourn with the bereaved, the wounded and those whose scars from this experience will run deep." Those killed in the attack included Rosita Furigay, a former mayor of Lamitan town in southern Basilan province, her aide and a university guard. Furigay’s daughter, who was supposed to attend the graduation, was wounded and taken to a hospital, a police report said. A picture from scene showed one of the victims sprawled on the ground near a bouquet of flowers. Investigators were trying to determine a motive for the attack, but Quezon City police chief Brig. Gen. Remus Medina said the suspect, apparently a medical doctor, had a long-running feud with Furigay.

A volcano approximately 600 km southeast of the Philippine capital spewed ash before dawn on Sunday, a week after a phreatic eruption that prompted authorities to raise the alert level to 1 and evacuate residents to safety. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said it detected a phreatic explosion again in Bulusan volcano in Sorsogon province at 3:37 a.m. local time on Sunday. "The event lasted 18 minutes based on the seismic record, but the eruption plume was not visible in camera monitors," the institute said. On June 5, authorities evacuated more than 200 residents near the volcano after spilling a grey plume about a kilometer high into the sky. The "phreatic eruption" lasted approximately 17 minutes and ashfall was reported in towns near the volcano. READ: First aid flights leave for Tonga after big volcano eruption The volcano remains on alert level 1 on a scale of 5, meaning that the volcano is still in an "abnormal condition." The institute urged people to stay away from the four-kilometer "permanent danger zone." The institute also advised pilots to avoid flying close to the volcano's summit as ash from any sudden phreatic eruption can be hazardous to aircraft. Bulusan volcano is one of the Philippines' most active volcanoes. In January 2018, the volcano spewed ash about 2.5 km high into the sky.

A ferry carrying more than 130 people caught fire in the northeastern Philippines on Monday, killing seven passengers and forcing many survivors to jump into the sea where they were rescued by other vessels. The fire rapidly spread from the engine room to the upper passenger deck of the M/V Mercraft 2 while it was approaching a seaport in Real, town administrator Filomena Portales said. It had been en route to the town in Quezon province from Polillo Island. Also read: Marcos, Duterte new Philippines president and vice-president Many of the 134 passengers and crew jumped into the water and were plucked from the sea by motorboats and cargo vessels, coast guard officials said. “Fishing boats and other vessels were able to approach quickly and everybody helped, so the rescue was fast,” Portales told The Associated Press by telephone, adding many of those rescued were in shock and had to be treated for burns and bruises and given dry clothes and shoes. Pictures released by the coast guard showed fire engulfing the ferry and dark smoke billowing from it. Injured survivors on stretchers were taken to waiting ambulance vans while a rescuer tried to revive an unconscious survivor by pressing on his chest. The coast guard said everyone on the ferry had been accounted for and 24 people who were injured were brought to a hospital. Portales said seven passengers died from burns and drowning and one possibly had a heart attack while floating in the water. Also read: Philippine storm death toll rises to 167, 110 missing Investigators were looking into the fire and other ferries operated by the owner of Mercraft 2 would likely be suspended from operating while undergoing safety inspections, officials said. The wreckage was towed to shore in Real. Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats, overcrowding and weak enforcement of safety regulations. In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

The death toll from the landslides and flooding spawned by tropical storm Megi has risen to 167, with 110 still missing, the government said on Saturday. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported that 164 died in the central Philippines and three in the southern Philippines. The agency, which culls reports from the provinces affected by disasters, added that there are 110 more missing in the central Philippines. Megi dumped rains in the central and southern Philippine regions before and after it hit land on April 10, inundating many areas and setting off landslides in several villages in Baybay City and Abuyog town in Leyte province. On Friday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte visited the devastated province and handed relief goods to the survivors. He conducted an aerial inspection of the villages buried by mudslides. The central Philippines is in the typhoon alley and usually the gateway of typhoons to the country. Landslides and flash floods are common across the Philippines during the rainy season, especially when typhoons hit. READ: Severe storms pummel South after 7 hurt in Arkansas tornado The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, mainly due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire and Pacific typhoon belt. On average, this archipelagic country experiences 20 typhoons every year, some of which are intense and destructive. Megi is the first storm to batter the Southeast Asian country this year.