Manila - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Friday that it approved a total of 10.5 billion dollars in loans in 2008, the highest in its 42-year history.

The Manila-based bank said the rise in loans reflected the region's ever-increasing demand for assistance to deal with the impact of the global economic crisis.

Cotabato City, Philippines  - Fourteen "high-risk" criminals escaped from a city jail in the southern Philippines, a jail official said Friday.

The detainees escaped from the Cotabato City jail, 930 kilometres south of Manila, late Thursday by overpowering the jail guards, according to city jail warden Inspector Panga Arab.

Arab said the escapees were facing murder, drug trafficking, robbery and illegal possession of firearms cases.

Manila  - A communist rebel was killed in a clash with government troops in an eastern Philippine town, a military report said Friday.

The report said the fighting erupted Thursday when patrolling troops encountered the guerrillas in a remote village in Esperanza town in Masbate province, 390 kilometres south of Manila.

The troops also recovered an assault rifle left behind by the fleeing rebels, it added.

Cotabato City, Philippines - Two pro-government militiamen were killed in an attack by suspected Muslim secessionist rebels in the southern Philippines, a regional army spokesman said Thursday.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce said the victims were aboard a trishaw when suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels fired at them in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, on Wednesday.

Two other militiamen were wounded in the attack, Ponce said.

Manila  - The United States is ready to provide assistance to the Philippines in its efforts to free Italian and Swiss Red Cross personnel seized by Muslim militants on a southern island, a US embassy diplomat said Thursday.

"We stand ready to help our Philippine counterparts with whatever they might request, of course," Thomas Gibbons, US deputy ambassador and political affairs counsellor, told reporters at the opening ceremony for annual US-Philippine military training exercises.

Manila  - The Philippines and the United States on Thursday began two weeks of joint military exercises involving at least 6,000 US troops, who were reminded to behave amid continuing controversy over an American Marine convicted of rape in 2006.

The American soldiers are to join about 2,000 Filipino troops in humanitarian missions, field training on counterterrorism and exercises on disaster response and rehabilitation during the exercises, called Balikatan, which means shoulder-to-shoulder.