Philippine police arrested ex-president Gloria Arroyo at her hospital bed on Friday on charges of conspiring with a feared warlord to rig an election, an offence that could lead to life in jail.

The events capped a tumultuous week in Philippine politics that had seen the government block Arroyo, 64, from leaving the country after she arrived at Manila airport wearing a neck brace and saying she needed medical care abroad.

The decision by the Commission on Elections to charge her Friday with rigging the 2007 senatorial elections also marked the high-point in President Benigno Aquino’s campaign to hold his predecessor to account for alleged graft.

“Mrs Arroyo is compelled to stay in the country and face the charges of electoral sabotage,” Justice Secretary Leila de Lima told reporters after a Manila court issued an arrest warrant against the ex-president.

“(This case) has great implications not just to the integrity of our electoral system, but also to the very principles of democracy.

“It is our desire… that the Filipino people are finally given the justice they duly deserve.”

Police then served the arrest warrant on Arroyo on Friday night at a Manila hospital where her aides said she was being treated for a rare bone disease that had led to three unsuccessful spine operations this year.

However Senior Superintendent James Bucayo, who served the arrest warrant, told reporters at the hospital that she would remain there until she was well enough to leave.

“We just put police guards outside her room,” he said.

Arroyo, the country’s second female president who is now a congresswoman, had been accused of many corrupt acts, such as bribery, and efforts to rig elections during her time in power from 2001 until the middle of last year.

She defeated repeated parliamentary impeachment attempts and coup attempts over the allegations while she was president.

Aquino vowed after winning landslide elections last year that one of his top priorities during his term would be to bring Arroyo to justice.

The election commission said Friday that Arroyo had ordered the wide-scale tampering of ballots in the 2007 senatorial elections.

It said the ballots that had been switched were in the southern province of Maguindanao, which was then ruled by the Ampatuan family.

The Ampatuans were close allies of Arroyo and had a reputation as warlords who enforced their rule of the province for a decade with a brutal private army.

Arroyo was eventually forced to sever ties with the Ampatuans after the family was accused of orchestrating the massacre of 57 people in 2009 to eliminate a rival’s political challenge.

The patriarch of the family, Andal Ampatuan Snr, who is on trial for those murders, was also charged on Friday as one of three other people who allegedly conspired with Arroyo to rig the 2007 election.

Arroyo’s lawyer, Raul Lambino, denounced the charges against his client as an injustice and a desperate effort to prevent her from leaving the country.

“They are violating the basic rule of due process. It is clear this (decision) was railroaded (forced through) from the start,” he said.

Arroyo had arrived at Manila airport on Tuesday night in a wheelchair and looking frail, seeking to fly to Singapore, hours after the Supreme Court overturned a government travel ban on her.

The Supreme Court ruled that she should be allowed to travel because she had not yet been charged with any crimes, rejecting government concerns that she was using her health condition as a ruse to flee into exile.

In a high-stakes political standoff, the government defied the Supreme Court and ordered immigration authorities to stop her from leaving the country, while racing to file charges against her.

The Philippines has consistently been ranked by anti-graft watchdogs as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and its leaders from national to provincial level are regularly accused of abuses of power.

Arroyo, who was then vice-president, took over in 2001, after her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, was forced to stand down on corruption charges. — AFP

Troops have overrun a hideout occupied by gunmen in the southern Philippines after a week of fighting that left 13 dead and forced thousands of civilians to flee, officials said Thursday.

Most of the estimated 100 gunmen holed up in the remote camp on Mindanao island had fled, although two surrendered earlier, said Philippine Army commander Lieutenant-General Arturo Ortiz.

“Yes, the camp of Commander Waning has been overrun,” Ortiz told reporters, referring to the alias of the gunmen’s alleged leader, who has been ordered arrested by a court to stand trial for kidnapping.

“There are reports that he fled with 40 of his men and that he had been wounded and unable to walk due to his injuries,” Ortiz added.

Several hundred troops were combing through the gunmen’s hideout, in a marshy area that had been fortified with reinforced concrete bunkers, he added.

Elite troops entered the camp in the Zamboanga Sibugay region on Wednesday after air raids — the Philippines’ first for three years — and artillery barrages that began on Monday.

The gunmen, who had been pursued by the military for some time over a range of crimes including murder and extortion, had occupied schools in nearby towns, before armed forces pushed them back to their base.

“This has become a lair of extortionists and petty criminals. This is where they hide out… they are well armed,” Mabanta said of the marshy 3.5 square-kilometre (1.35 square-mile) camp.

The government has accused the gunmen of killing four soldiers and four policemen in ambushes there last week, as well as for previous kidnappings.

The gunmen were initially identified as members of the country’s main Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, but the MILF disowned them on Tuesday.

Nonetheless the MILF has claimed responsibility for the killing of 19 special forces commandos last week on the nearby island of Basilan after they strayed into rebel territory in a separate incident.

The violence has cast a shadow over the government’s peace talks with the MILF, which began in 2003 and include a ceasefire.

President Benigno Aquino said on Monday that the peace process would continue, a stand later echoed by the 12,000-strong MILF.

The military operations chief, Brigadier-General Jose Mabanta, said two soldiers and six gunmen were killed during the earlier stages of the operation against the camp, adding they were verifying reports 16 other gunmen had died.

The civil defence office in Manila said four civilians were also killed in the area and another civilian was killed on Basilan, without saying who was responsible for the deaths.

Almost 20,000 people in total have been forced from their homes in the two areas by fighting between government forces and gunmen, who included Muslim rebels, officials said.

Area disaster officials said more than 11,500 people fled their homes on Mindanao island and a further 7,800 took refuge in government evacuation centres on Basilan.

Meanwhile an improvised bomb tore through a restaurant on the outskirts of the port of Zamboanga late Wednesday, killing one person and wounding eight others, police said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, while police disarmed two other improvised explosive devices at a lottery shop nearby.

The regional military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Bartolome Cabangbang, said the authorities did not believe the bombing was connected to the military offensive against the camp.

“We do not see that they are related,” Cabangbang told AFP. — AFP

A building-sized edifice carved with the Bible’s Ten Commandments was unveiled Wednesday in the Philippines, making it the largest tablet of its kind, according to Guinness World Records.

The tablet, a copy of the rules supposedly handed down by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, was inaugurated by city officials on a hill overlooking the northern resort city of Baguio.

A local religious group, donated the imposing 152.90 square metre (1,650 square foot) tablet to the city as they were presented a certificate from Guinness World Records.

“This beautiful and divine edifice will serve to drive away the evils of spirits that time and again emerge,” said Baguio Congressman Bernardo Vergara at the inauguration.

“May it drive away evils of illegal drugs, gambling, prostitution.”

The religious leader who sponsored the project, Grace Galindez-Gupana, topped her previous world record, attained in 2009 when she built a similar 65-square-metre tablet on a hill outside Manila. — AFP

About 10,000 people have fled their homes amid fighting between Muslim rebels and government forces in the southern Philippines, a civil defence official said Tuesday.

The displaced population accounts for about one in seven residents of the towns of Payao, Alicia and Talusan on Mindanao island, home of a decades-old Muslim insurgency, said provincial disaster monitoring chief Adriano Fuego.

The government said the fighting and the evacuations were an offshoot of a military operation against “lawless elements” engaged in kidnappings, but Muslim rebels have alleged their forces have been attacked as well.

“There was advance news, like text messages on the cellphones they (rebels) would attack the municipalities. There were text messages going around saying other municipalities would be attacked,” Fuego told AFP.

Residents took refuge with their relatives shortly before Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) forces moved into parts of their towns, preventing potential civilian casualties, he added.

MILF fighters occupied schools in remote areas of the southern island of Mindanao over the weekend, triggering military air strikes and a ground assault on Monday that the government said left two soldiers and six gunmen dead.

The same group of rebels targeted by the air strikes was blamed for ambushes that killed four soldiers and four policemen in the same remote area of Mindanao on Thursday last week.

Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said Tuesday that soldiers were still advancing on the positions of the gunmen in the area. — AFP

The Philippines said Friday that many of the thousands of its workers who fled Libya due to unrest this year would likely return now that former leader Moamer Kadhafi has been killed.

“The Philippines congratulates the Libyan people for their latest victory and the total liberation of Libya,” the foreign affairs department said in a statement.

Thousands of Filipinos consider Libya their second home, it added.

“Many hope to return, work, and contribute to the reconstruction and rebuilding of the new Libya,” it said.

Most of the roughly 30,000 Filipinos working in Libya fled the North African nation this year after unrest broke out. About 1,600 remained in the country, according to the Philippine government.

About nine million Filipinos work around the world, earning more money in a wide range of skilled and unskilled sectors than they could in their impoverished homeland. — AFP

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine troops have recovered the bodies of six more soldiers following fierce fighting with the country’s largest Muslim rebel group that has sent both sides scrambling to stop the violence from further damaging shaky peace talks.

Tuesday’s fighting on southern Basilan island between army special forces and members of the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front killed at least 25 combatants.

One soldier reported missing was rescued late Wednesday and another was found early Thursday in the sea near the scene of the fighting, swimming toward a military detachment, army spokesman Col. Antonio Parlade said.

The bodies of the six soldiers were recovered Wednesday. The bodies bore hack wounds, indicating they were captured and then killed, Parlade said.

The battle was one of the deadliest since 2008, when peace talks bogged down and ignited widespread clashes that killed hundreds and displaced 750,000 people.

The rebels have waged a bloody insurgency for self-rule in the southern Mindanao region, the homeland of minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines. The conflict has killed more than 120,000 people in nearly four decades.

Since the clashes in 2008, a Malaysia-led peacekeeping contingent has kept watch to prevent further battles and keep the atmosphere ripe for peace talks.

The military and the guerrillas blamed each other for starting Tuesday’s clash and planned to protest before a joint government-rebel cease-fire committee. Government negotiator Marvic Leonen said that the clash was accidental and that peace talks would continue.

The military initially reported 13 soldiers were killed and 13 others wounded. Troops found six more bodies near the battle scene in remote Al-Barka town, bringing the military death toll in the clash to 19, said regional military commander Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer.

President Benigno Aquino III called a meeting with the defense chief and military officials for Friday to discuss the military setback.

Rebel spokesman Von Al Haq said five rebels were slain Tuesday. Police reported six rebels were killed.

Cabangbang said Wednesday that the clashes had stopped and that the military had asked the joint government-rebel cease-fire committee to allow them to search for the missing soldiers in the Moro rebels’ Al-Barka stronghold.

Al Haq, however, said rebels from his group have reported they are not holding any captives. Several army soldiers apparently fled during the clash into nearby communities and some were shot as they ran away, he said.

“Our men have been ordered not to advance or attack unless they come under attack,” Al Haq said. “Hopefully we can diffuse this with the other side.”

Malaysian-led peacekeepers are trying to pacify both sides, Al Haq said.

It was not immediately clear if al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants, known for beheading soldiers, got involved in Tuesday’s clashes. The militants are active in Basilan, a predominantly Muslim island about 550 miles (880 kilometers) south of Manila, and some are relatives of the Moro rebels. — AP

Two Philippine soldiers were killed Thursday in a fresh Muslim guerrilla attack on a southern island following the killing of 19 soldiers earlier this week, the army said.

Two army trucks in a convoy were ambushed by suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) men along a road on the island of Mindanao, said an army report to the regional military headquarters.

Two soldiers were killed and four others were wounded in the ambush near the town of Alicia, and 12 men in the convoy are missing, the report said.

The attack came two days after MILF forces killed 19 soldiers on the remote southern island of Basilan in one of the worst outbreaks of violence between the two sides in years.

MILF spokesmen could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

The fresh fighting has further complicated efforts to end one of Asia’s longest insurgencies, with the MILF and the military trading accusations of breaking a ceasefire in place to promote peace talks.

The 12,000-strong MILF has waged a rebellion since the 1970s for an independent Islamic state or autonomous-rule in the southern third of the mainly Catholic Philippines.

The rebellion has left about 150,000 people dead, with most of the deaths occurring in the 1970s when an all-out war raged.

Although the two sides signed a truce in 2003 that paved the way for peace talks, the ceasefire is frequently marred by clashes across the vast southern Mindanao region that Muslims claim as their ancestral homeland. — AFP