Manila - About 100 police officers were facing administrative investigation for failing to attend court hearings on drug-related cases, a police spokesman said Wednesday. Chief superintendent Nicanor Bartolome said the officers may be suspended or dismissed from service if proven that they neglected their duty to attend court hearings, resulting in the dismissal of criminal charges against suspected drug pushers.

Manila - A family of six, including four children, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen who burned their house in a southern Philippine city in a bid to hide the crime, a regional police chief said Tuesday. Chief Superintendent Danilo Empredrad said the attack occurred before dawn Sunday while the family was asleep inside the house on the outskirts of Gingoog City in Agusan del Norte province, 795 kilometres south of Manila.

Empredad said the assailants barged into the house and shot the victims before burning the house.

Zamboanga City, Philippines - Muslim militants killed one of two hostages they seized in a southern Philippine province last week, a regional marines spokesman said Monday. Captain Neil Torres said government troops recovered on Sunday the body of Cosme Aballes, one of two people seized last Friday by Abu Sayyaf rebels in the outskirts of Lamitan City in Basilan province, 900 kilometres south of Manila.

Torres said the head of the victim was nearly torn from his body when the government troops recovered him.

Manila - Environment groups on Monday lambasted the Philippines' health secretary for supervising the burning of thousands of bottles of salmonella-tainted peanut butter. The Ecological Waste Coalition criticized Health Secretary Francisco Duque for supervising the incineration of the contaminated products last week in Taguig City in metropolitan Manila.

The group said the disposal was a violation of the Clean Air Act, which prohibits the burning of materials that emit toxic and poisonous fumes.

Cotabato City, Philippines - Three government anti-drug agents were killed in an attack Monday in the southern Philippines, the military and police said. Three agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency were also wounded in the ambush in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao province, 930 kilometres south of Manila.

Colonel Jonathan Ponce, a local army spokesman, said the agents were on a mission to raid a suspected safe house of a notorious drug pusher in the town when they were attacked.

Cotabato City, Philippines - Three Muslim separatist rebels and one government militiaman were killed in a clash in the southern Philippines, an army spokesman said Sunday. The firefight erupted when 25 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels stormed an outpost of government militiamen in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, on Saturday.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce said the militiamen fought the rebels until soldiers arrived in armoured personnel carriers.