• About 68 million eligible voters in the Philippines are heading to the polls in mid-terms that will decide the fate of a long-running power struggle between the country’s two biggest political dynasties
• The senate races pit candidates backed by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr against those supported by Vice-President Sara Duterte, daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte
• If Marcos’ senate picks win more seats, it increases his chances of impeaching Sara Duterte for alleged misuse of state funds – this would bar her from seeking the presidency in 2028
• Also on the ballot are candidates for the 317-member Congress, hundreds of governors, mayors and city councillors
• Voting runs from 07:00 local time (00:00 BST; 23:00 GMT) to 19:00, with unofficial results expected soon after

Concerns of vote-buying and fraud resurface

Voting fraud has been a persistent issue in Philippine elections, with allegations of cheating surfacing at nearly every poll.

This election is no different. Over the weekend, the military intercepted 441 million Philippine pesos ($7.96m, £6m) in cash from 11 suspects at an airport – an incident they said “raised serious concerns about potential election-related illegal activities, including vote buying and money laundering”.

Several foreign nationals – six Chinese, one Malaysian, and one Kazakh – were involved in the case alongside two Filipinos, a military spokesperson said. This “strongly suggests the alarming possibility of foreign interference in our sovereign electoral process,” he added.

Earlier today, a video circulated widely on social media showing several people said to be poll watchers filling in ballots for elderly voters in the province of Abra. The alleged poll watchers have since been fired, according to reports.

Meanwhile, in the province of Camarines Sur, police have arrested eight people involved in various alleged vote-buying activities, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

Cost of living among top concerns for Filipinos

Although much of the spotlight in this election is on the Marcos-Duterte feud, the cost of living remains one of the top concerns for Filipinos.

Official data suggests that the country’s inflation is slowing down. However, a survey conducted by Pulse Asia – one of the country’s most credible pollsters – shows that 69% of respondents consider the rising prices of goods to be their most pressing issue, according to GMA News.

Fighting corruption, combating criminality, and reducing poverty also rank high on voters’ list of concerns.

Meanwhile, another survey by OCTA Research Group found that inflation and the healthcare system are among the top priorities for voters in this election, according to news outlet PhilStar.

Race to Watch: Gen Z’s mayor in Pasig City

Vico Sotto is mayor of Pasig, one of the smaller cities in Metro Manila – but his constituency is far bigger. His Facebook following of two million is double the size of the city’s population.

The social-media savvy mayor was only in his twenties when he beat a political dynasty in 2019, promising honest and transparent governance.

And he delivered. Pasig is an aberration in Philippine politics: a city where the incumbent mayor does not have their name, photo or initials stamped on government projects and handouts to ingratiate themselves to voters.

In 2021, the US State Department cited Sotto as one of 12 global anti-corruption champions.

Beyond the accolades, he is well-loved online by millennials and Gen Z for his public service posts peppered with wisecracks. He is, after all, the son of one of the country’s most beloved TV and film comedians.

In this election, Sotto is running for his third and final three-year term, and is facing a serious challenger. This is one race the entire country will be watching.

Sara Duterte greets supporters at polling station

We’ve also received images of Vice President Sara Duterte casting her vote today as her political fate hangs in the balance. She was swarmed by supporters at the polling station in the Dutertes’ stronghold Davao City.

In February, she was impeached by lawmakers in the lower house of parliament. Whether or not her impeachment goes through hinges on the upcoming election – and the composition of the Senate thereafter.

Sara’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, is running for mayor in Davao City with her brother Sebastian as vice mayor.

But Rodrigo Duterte is conspicuously absent – he is being held at the Hague after he was arrested in March. He cannot be disqualified under Philippine law because he has not been convicted of any crime.

Earlier Sara Duterte said her father failed to cast his vote from The Hague, despite a last-minute appeal to Filipino authorities to allow him to do so.

The 80-year-old was told he was ineligible to vote online since he is not registered to cast his ballot as an expatriate, she said.

Three generations of Marcos family seen at the polls

As we reported earlier, the Marcos family, one of the country’s most powerful dynasties, showed up to vote at a polling station earlier today.

We now have more pictures of the family, which the Philippines’ presidential communications office released to the media.

Once associated with excess and corruption, the Marcoses have since rehabilitated their image, paving the way for Ferdinand Marcos Jr, also known as Bongbong Marcos, to win the presidency in 2022. He was seen holding up his finger stained with ink, a sign that he had just voted.

The clan’s matriarch, 95-year-old Imelda Marcos, was seen in a wheelchair. While she is known for her strong personality – earning her the nickname “Steel Butterfly” – she has also been known for her lavish lifestyle. Most famously, she left behind 3,000 pairs of shoes when the family fled the country in 1986, amid a public revolt against Ferdinand Marcos Sr’s authoritarian regime.

Sandro Marcos, 31, the eldest son of President Marcos, was seen whispering into his father’s ear. He has followed his father’s footsteps in politics, and in 2022 he won an election to become a district representative in Ilocos Norte, the family’s traditional stronghold.

What’s been happeningpublished

Good morning to our readers in the UK and Europe. If you’re just joining us, this is what we’ve been reporting on so far:

• Voting is underway across the Philippines. Polls opened at 07:00 local time (00:00 BST) and will close at 19:00 (12:00 BST)
• More than 18,000 positions are up for grabs across national and local government
• Tensions between the Marcos and Duterte political dynasties hang over the election
• The most-closely watched will be the 12 senate seats. The new composition of the 24-seat senate could have a big impact on the impeachment motion facing current vice-president, Sara Duterte
• The senate become jurors in an impeachment trial. A two thirds majority – at least 16 votes – are required
• But as our South East Asia Correspondent Jonathan Head writes: “Filipino senators have their own interests and ambitions; whatever their current allegiance, they will want to assess where public opinion lies before deciding which way to vote when the impeachment trial begins in the senate later this year.”

Sara Duterte sees ‘realistic’ chance of winning ‘more than two’ seats

Vice-President Sara Duterte says she has briefed her father, Rodrigo Duterte, on their chances in today’s senatorial elections.

Based on various polls, the vice-president says she had told her father it is “realistic” to expect “more than two” of their bets among the 12 winners.

“He told me, if that is the realistic view, let’s just leave the miracle up to God,” Sara tells reporters.

Two of Duterte’s close aides – Bong Go and Ronald dela Rosa – are among the senate race frontrunners. Both are up for re-election.

Go, Duterte’s longtime personal assistant, is seen as having a shot at the number one spot, a much coveted place in Philippine politics. Dela Rosa, who implemented the Duterte drug war as national police chief, is not far behind.

Most polls show a tight race for the 10th to 12th slots among a handful of candidates, including two candidates endorsed by Sara – Imee Marcos and Camille Villar.

Imee, President Bongbong Marcos’ sister, recently bolted from her brother’s alliance. Villar is from a prominent political family and was aligned with the Marcos family in the past, but has recently appeared in a campaign video with Sara Duterte.

Cardinals urge voters to ‘listen to the voice of the Lord’

Ahead of the election today, Catholic cardinals from the Philippines have urged voters to let the spirit of God guide their voting.

The Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan, Socrates Villegas, told voters to “listen to the voice of Our Lady, not to the voice of money”.

“Let us listen to the voice of the Lord, and not to the voice of lying, not to the voice of disinformation, not to the voice of fake news,” he said in a homily.

Meanwhile, Philippine cardinals who attended the papal conclave at the Vatican urged voters to view the election as a “sacred moment”.

Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle – who were both seen as potential contenders for the papacy – said the oath taken by electors in the conclave could also be used by Catholic voters in any election, reported Rappler., external

The oath is: “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who, before God, I think should be elected.”

“This is also my message to candidates… let’s help each other have new models of leadership,” said Cardinal David.

With more than 80 million Catholics, the Philippines has the biggest Catholic population in Asia and the third-largest in the world.

Two killed in suspected election violence in Silay city

As Filipinos head to the polls, reports have been trickling in of suspected election-related violence.

Two people were killed and several injured in a shooting in Silay city, Negros Occidental on Monday morning. The victims were supporters of Silay Mayor Joedith Gallego, who is running for re-election today, authorities said.

In Davao Occidental, a child was injured by a stray bullet on Monday, the election commission chairman told reporters, though he did not say if the incident was related to the election. “We don’t know why they feel the need to fire their guns,” he said.

At least two political candidates have also been shot and killed leading up to election day, while four people were killed in Mindanao during a clash on Sunday.

As we reported earlier, such deaths around elections are not uncommon for the country, which has lax gun laws and a violent political culture.

New vote counting technology deployed for the first time

For more than a decade, the Philippines has used electronic voting machines to boost the speed and accuracy of vote counting.

This year, the country is switching its vote counting machine provider to Miru Systems, a South Korean polling company.

Last year the company was the lone bidder for a government contract worth 17.9bn Philippine pesos ($325m; £244m) to provide some 110,000 automated counting machines for the mid-term polls.

However, Miru has faced controversy in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iraq. Critics say the company’s technology is prone to hacking and fraud – claims that the company has denied.

Race to watch: Mayor of Manila

Manila is the capital city of the Philippines – not to be confused with Metro Manila, the capital region that is comprised of 16 cities, including Manila, and one municipality.

The city of Manila is is rich in history, and home to the presidential palace. Its leader is tasked with the upkeep of many of the country’s cultural treasures, as well as receiving VIP visitors from overseas.

This is where Isko Moreno wants to make a comeback. Moreno, a former teen heartthrob, was tipped to be a strong presidential candidate in 2022. But his rags-to-riches tale of garbage picker to mayor was no match against Marcos’ promise of a new golden age.

Moreno, who was Manila mayor from 2019 to 2022, has promised to “Make Manila Great Again”, borrowing the language of Donald Trump.

He is running against incumbent Honey Lacuna, a medical doctor and veteran politician who was his vice mayor.

Philippine senators play an intricate game of politics

With 12 of the 24 Senate seats up for grabs today, it’s important to note that the Philippines’ multi-party system is based less on principles and more on shifting loyalties among the political elite.

The president – who serves for six years and is not eligible for any re-election – wields considerable power under a system that is modelled on that of the US, the Philippines’ last colonial overseer.

Presidents have historically controlled the House, and depended on the national government to fund projects for their congressional districts.

They typically have less influence on the Senate, which decades of personality-based politics has turned into a bench for presidents- and vice presidents-in-waiting.

Senators, especially those with ambitions for higher office, play a very intricate game.

They don’t want to be out of the good graces of the presidential palace, which holds considerable power, yet don’t want to be seen as too subservient to the president.

Shortly before he landed in the Netherlands, the 79-year-old unapologetically defended his bloody “war on drugs” for which the ICC says there are “reasonable grounds” to charge him with murder as a crime against humanity.

Small-time drug dealers, users and others were killed without trial on his watch as mayor and, later, as president.

The official toll stands at 6,000, though activists believe the real figure could run into the tens of thousands.

Duterte said he cracked down on drug dealers to rid the country of street crimes.

However, rights groups allege that the campaign was rife with police abuse, targeting young men from the urban poor.

Duterte is the first Asian former head of state to be indicted by the ICC – and the first suspect to be flown to The Hague in three years.

And his arrival comes at a pivotal moment for the International Criminal Court.

Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and deportation on Monday was the result of an unprecedented chain of events.

His supporters allege that the ICC is being used as a political tool by the country’s current president Ferdinand Marcos who has publicly fallen out with the powerful Duterte family.

The ICC is a court of last resort designed to hold the most powerful to account when domestic courts are unable or unwilling to do so. But this case is a reminder of the extent to which it depends on state cooperation in order to fulfil its mandate – it effectively has no power to arrest people without the cooperation of the countries they are in, which is most often refused.

In the case of Duterte, chances that he would ever be prosecuted by the ICC seemed unthinkable even in 2022, when his daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, allied with Marcos to create the powerful “uniteam” that swept parliamentary elections.

Up until a few months ago, Marcos had dismissed the idea of cooperating with the ICC.

But the pace at which Duterte was served an arrest warrant and extradited shows that when political winds shift, those once considered untouchable can find themselves touching down in The Hague.

The whole process of his extradition – from his detention in Manila to his arrival in The Hague – has been documented on social media by his daughter Kitty and Duterte himself through his aide. His plane was the most tracked on flight radar.

“I am the one who led our law enforcement and military. I said that I will protect you and I will be responsible for all of this,” he said on a Facebook video, one of many that was shared over more than 24 hours during his journey from Manila to The Hague.

It provided rare insight into what is usually an opaque process, and the world was able to follow, sometimes in real time, every step of it right down to the meals Duterte was served on board his chartered jet.

Duterte’s arrest now sends a strong signal that even powerful individuals may be held accountable for their actions, potentially deterring future abuses.

His case has also reignited debate about the ICC’s role in relation to national sovereignty, a concern often raised by non-member states like the United States, Russia, and China.

The court depends on its 128 members to fund and be the operational arm of this judicial body.

So Duterte’s headline-making arrival, followed by his first night in a jail cell at The Hague, offer the the court a much-needed win.

After serving two high-profile arrest warrants – one for the Russian president Vladimir Putin, and another for Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza – which are unlikely to be enforced any time soon, the arrival of Duterte will be put forth as proof the court is capable of bringing those accused of the gravest atrocities to face justice.

It is a litmus test for the ICC’s ability to function effectively in an increasingly polarised climate.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan was recently sanctioned by Donald Trump over the arrest warrant issued for Benjamin Netanyahu.

The detention of Duterte provides him with a powerful response.

“Many say international law is not strong,” Karim Khan acknowledged. “But international law is not as weak as some may think. When we come together, when we build partnerships, the rule of law can prevail.”

The former Philippines president will now mark his 80th birthday this month in the ICC’s detention facility, located in the dunes of The Hague.

The facility, once a Nazi prison complex, provides each detainee with a private cell, access to computers, a library, and sports facilities.

If he isn’t satisfied with the meals provided, Duterte has the option to prepare his own food using a shopping list in the detention center’s kitchen. He will also have access to medical care, lawyers, and visitors.

He is expected to make his initial court appearance in the coming days, where he will confirm his identity, choose the language he wishes to follow proceedings in, and acknowledge the charges against him.

Following this public appearance, a confirmation of charges hearing will follow, during which the judges will decide whether the prosecution has presented a sufficient amount of evidence to proceed to trial.

If the charges are confirmed, it could be many months before he eventually goes on trial, and years before a final judgment.

The 79-year-old was taken into police custody shortly after his arrival at Manila airport from Hong Kong.

He has offered no apologies for his brutal anti-drugs crackdown, which saw thousands of people killed when he was president of the South East Asian nation from 2016 to 2022, and mayor of Davao city before that.

Upon his arrest, he questioned the basis for the warrant, asking: “What crime [have] I committed?”

Duterte’s former presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo criticised the arrest, calling it “unlawful” as the Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019.

The ICC earlier said that it has jurisdiction in the Philippines over alleged crimes committed before the country withdrew as a member.

But activists called the arrest a “historic moment” for those who perished in his drug war and their families, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but today, it has bent towards justice. Duterte’s arrest is the beginning of accountability for the mass killings that defined his brutal rule,” said ICHRP chairman Peter Murphy.

Duterte had been in Hong Kong to campaign for the upcoming 12 May mid-term elections, where he had planned to run again for mayor of Davao.

Footage aired on local television showed him walking out of the airport using a cane. Authorities say he is in “good health” and is being cared for by government doctors.

“What is my sin? I did everything in my time for peace and a peaceful life for the Filipino people,” he told a cheering crowd of Filipino expatriates before leaving Hong Kong.

A video posted by his daughter, Veronica Duterte, showed Duterte in custody in a lounge at Manila’s Villamor Air Base. In it, he can be heard questioning the reason for his arrest.

“What is the law and what is the crime that I committed? I was brought here not of my own volition, it is somebody else’s. You have to answer now for the deprivation of liberty.”

Duterte’s arrest marks the “beginning of a new chapter in Philippine history”, said Filipino political scientist Richard Heydarian.

“This is about rule of law and human rights,” he said.

Heydarian added that authorities had arrested Duterte promptly at the airport instead of letting the matter take its course through the local courts to “avoid political chaos”.

“Duterte’s supporters were hoping they could go berserk in terms of public rallies and [use] all sorts of delaying tactics… [to] drag things on until the warrant of arrest loses momentum,” he said.

The demand for justice in Duterte’s drug war goes “hand in hand” with the political interests of his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Heydarian said.

The Duterte and Marcos families formed a formidable alliance in the last elections in 2022, where against the elder Duterte’s wishes, his daughter Sara ran as Marcos Jr’s vice-president instead of seeking her father’s post.

The relationship unravelled publicly in recent months as the two families pursued separate political agendas.

Marcos initially refused to co-operate with the ICC investigation, but as his relationship with the Duterte family deteriorated, he changed his stance, and later indicated that the Philippines would co-operate.

It is not clear yet whether Marcos would go as far as extraditing the former president to stand trial in The Hague.

Duterte served as mayor of Davao, a sprawling southern metropolis, for 22 years and has made it one of the country’s safest from street crimes.

He used the city’s peace-and-order reputation to cast himself as a tough-talking anti-establishment politician to win the 2016 elections by a landslide.

With fiery rhetoric, he rallied security forces to shoot drug suspects dead. More than 6,000 suspects were gunned down by police or unknown assailants during the campaign, but rights groups say the number could be higher.

A previous UN report found that most victims were young, poor urban males and that police, who do not need search or arrest warrants to conduct house raids, systematically forced suspects to make self-incriminating statements or risk facing lethal force.

Critics said the campaign targeted street-level pushers and failed to catch big-time drug lords. Many families also claimed that the victims – their sons, brothers or husbands – were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Investigations in parliament pointed to a shadowy “death squad” of bounty hunters targeting drug suspects. Duterte has denied the allegations of abuse.

“Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do, and whether or not you believe it… I did it for my country,” Duterte told a parliament investigation in October.

“I hate drugs, make no mistake about it.”

The ICC first took note of the alleged abuses in 2016 and started its investigation in 2021. It covered cases from November 2011, when Duterte was mayor of Davao, to March 2019, before the Philippines withdrew from the ICC.

Since taking power, Marcos has scaled back Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign and promised a less violent approach to the drug problem, but hundreds of drug-related killings have been recorded during his administration.

Duterte remains widely popular in the Philippines as he is the country’s first leader from Mindanao, a region south of Manila, where many feel marginalised by the leaders in the capital.

He often speaks in Cebuano, the regional language, not Tagalog, which is more widely-spoken in Manila and northern regions.

When he stepped down in 2022, nearly nine in 10 Filipinos said they were satisfied with his performance as president – a score unseen among his predecessors since the restoration of democracy in 1986, according to the Social Weather Stations research institute.

His populist rhetoric and blunt statements earned him the moniker “Donald Trump of the East”. He has called Russian President Vladimir Putin his “idol” and under his administration, the Philippines’ pivoted their foreign policy to China away from the US, its long-standing ally.

Marcos restored Manila’s ties with Washington and criticised the Duterte government for being “Chinese lackeys” as the Philippines is locked in sea dispute with China.

China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it was “closely monitoring the development of the situation” and warned the ICC against “politicisation” and “double standards” in the arrest of Duterte.

Duterte’sdaughter and political heir, Sara Duterte, is tipped as a potential presidential candidate in 2028. The incumbent, Marcos, is barred by the constitution from seeking re-election.

Carlito Cernal, village chief of Barangay Addition Hills in central Manila, announced the bounty of one peso (less than two US cents) for every five mosquitoes.

While news of the bounty has provoked scorn on social media, Mr Cernal has defended it as necessary for the community’s health.

The move follows a recent spike in cases of dengue, which is spread by mosquitoes, in the Philippines.

The programme, which will run for at least a month, was started after two students in Mr Cernal’s neighbourhood died from the disease.

The bounty applies to all mosquitoes – dead or alive – and their larvae, Mr Cernal added. Live mosquitoes will be exterminated using ultraviolet light.

A total of 21 people have already claimed their reward, bringing in a total of 700 mosquitoes and larvae so far, he told the BBC.

The bounty drew swift ridicule after it was announced late on Tuesday.

“Mosquito farming is coming,” one social media comment read. “Will a mosquito get rejected if it has only one wing?” read another.

The Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) told the BBC that it “appreciates the good intentions of local government executives to fight dengue”.

It declined further comment, however, when asked if catching mosquitoes in exchange for cash is an effective way of stopping dengue.

“We urge all concerned to please consult and coordinate with their local health officers or the DOH regional office in their area for evidence-based practices that are known to work,” it said.

Mr Cernal said he was aware that the bounty had been bashed on social media, but added: “This is one of the biggest and most dense areas. We have to do something to help the local government.”

He pointed out thatlocal health authorities recorded 44 cases of dengue in the community during the most recent surge of infections.

Barangay Addition Hills is home to nearly 70,000 people, crammed into a 162-hectare patch at the heart of the capital, Metro Manila.

Mr Cernal said the bounty was meant to supplement existing measures such as cleaning the streets and preventing the build-up of water where dengue-carrying mosquitoes lay their eggs.

Dengue is endemic in tropical countries, and outbreaks often occur in urban areas with poor sanitation which allows virus-carrying mosquitoes to multiply.

In severe cases, dengue causes internal bleeding which can lead to death. Its symptoms include headaches, nausea, joint and muscle pain.

Philippine authorities have recently flagged a rise in dengue cases nationwide due to seasonal rains. The DOH said it recorded 28,234 cases on 1 February, a 40% jump from the previous year.

The department has advised the public to maintain the cleanliness of their surroundings, destroy potential mosquito breeding sites such as tyres, wear long-sleeved shirts and trousers and apply mosquito repellent.

Aside from dengue, the DOH said the rains have also fuelled a spike in influenza-like diseases and cases of leptospirosis, a rat-borne disease that people get when wading in flood waters.

Duterte, the daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte, has been accused of misusing millions of dollars in public funds and threatening to have President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr assassinated.

She has denied the charges and alleged she is the victim of a political vendetta.

The shock move is widely seen as an escalation of Duterte’s bitter feud with Marcos, which has kept the nation on edge for months.

A total of 215 out of 306 members of the House of Representatives voted for impeachment, well above the one-third threshold needed for the bill to pass.

The bill will now be heard by the 24-member Senate, which will convene as an impeachment court.

If found guilty, Duterte faces removal and disqualification from public office, and would be the first vice-president in Philippine history to be impeached.

She is expected to stay in office until the Senate delivers its judgment.

The Philippine Coast Guard said on Saturday that three Chinese coastguard vessels and four smaller boats made “aggressive manoeuvres” towards two Philippine Bureau of Fisheries inflatable boats that were on their way to collect sand samples from Sandy Cay near the Philippine-occupied Thitu island on Friday.

A Chinese navy helicopter also hovered at an “unsafe altitude” over those craft, it said.

The two countries have been engaging in a long-running series of escalating confrontations in disputed waters of the South China Sea for years. China claims almost all of the strategic waterway, through which $3 trillion of commerce moves annually, overlapping with claims by the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

That claim has been declared as without basis by the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague, a decision Beijing does not recognise.

“As  a result of this continuous harassment and the disregard for safety exhibited by the Chinese maritime forces”, survey operations were suspended, the Philippine Coast Guard said.

Despite the “dangerous confrontations”, no accidents occurred, the coastguard added.

In its own statement, China Coast Guard said China has “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratly Islands, including Sandy Cay – which China calls Tiexian Reef – and that it had intercepted two Philippine vessels and driven them away in accordance with law.

China Coast Guard said the Philippine vessels had entered waters near Tiexian Reef without permission and attempted to “illegally” land on the reef to collect sand samples.

Thitu lies about 430km (267 miles) from the major Philippine island of Palawan, and more than 900km (560 miles) from China’s nearest major landmass of Hainan island.

Chinese forces have garrisoned the Subi Reef near Thitu.

Also on Friday, Philippine forces resupplied and rotated without incident troops manning a derelict navy vessel grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratlys, the foreign affairs department said.

Manila had deliberately grounded the vessel, Sierra Madre, on the reef to assert its claim over the area.

The Philippine government raised the alarm this month over Chinese coastguard ships patrolling closer to the main Filipino island of Luzon, calling it an “intimidation tactic” by Beijing to discourage Filipino fishing.

China rejected the allegation, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying the patrols were “in accordance with the law”.

 and Beijing agreed during a round of talks on January 16 to seek common ground and find ways to cooperate despite their disagreements in the South China Sea.

“An explosive eruption occurred at the summit vent of Kanlaon Volcano at 3:03 pm (0703 GMT) today,” the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) said in a statement on Monday.

“All local government units are advised to evacuate the 6km (4 mile) radius from the summit of the volcano and must be prepared for additional evacuation if activity warrants,” it added.

PHIVOLCS later warned there are indications that Mount Kanlaon could erupt further in the coming days.

Images posted on social media following the eruption showed several areas near the volcano were blanketed in thick volcanic ash.

Rising more than 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) above sea level on the central island of Negros, Kanlaon is one of 24 active volcanoes in the Philippines.

The Office of Civil Defense estimated that 54,000 people or 12,000 families would be covered by the evacuation efforts. It is unclear how long the evacuation process would take.

“Authorities are preparing for the worst-case scenario of raising the alert level … which would necessitate further evacuation and safety measures,” the civil defence office said in a statement.

“Evacuations are ongoing” in four upland villages of La Castellana town, on the volcano’s southwest slope, municipal police officer Staff Sergeant Ronel Arevalo told the AFP news agency.

Governor Eugenio Lacson of Negros Occidental Province told ABS-CBN News that he is ready to declare a state of calamity should the situation worsen.

La Castellana resident Dianne Paula Abendan, 24, used her mobile phone to take a video clip of a giant cauliflower-shaped grey mass of smoke billowing above the crater.

“These past few days we’ve seen black smoke coming out of [the] volcano. We were expecting that it would erupt anytime this week,” she told AFP by phone.

Abendan said people rushed home to await evacuation orders, but added that the volcanic activity appeared to ease slightly about an hour later.

In September, hundreds of nearby residents were evacuated after the volcano spurted thousands of tonnes of harmful gases in a single day.

The seismology office said Kanlaon has erupted more than 40 times since 1866.In 1996, three hikers were killed due to ash ejection from the volcano.

The incident happened near the disputed Scarborough Shoal and Beijing said it acted “in accordance with the law”.

The US ambassador to the Philippines condemned China’s “unlawful use of water cannons and dangerous manoeuvres”.

The South China Sea is at the centre of a territorial dispute between China, the Philippines and other countries. But tensions between Manila and Beijing have sharply escalated in the last year.

On Wednesday, Manila released a video appearing to show a Chinese coast guard ship blasting water at a Philippines fisheries department vessel.

Separate footage, apparently taken from the Philippine ship, showed its crew shouting “Collision! Collision!” as the Chinese boat crashes into it.

The Philippine coast guard said the Chinese coast guard ship “intentionally sideswiped” the ship and then “launched a second water cannon attack on the same vessel”.

China’s coast guard said in an initial statement that Philippine ships “came dangerously close” and that its crew’s actions had been “in accordance with the law”.

It later accused the Philippines of making “bogus accusations in an attempt to mislead international understanding” and said it had deliberately collided with the Chinese ship.

But MaryKay Carlson, US ambassador to the Philippines, said “we condemn these actions” by China.

In a post on X, she said that “unlawful use of water cannons and dangerous manoeuvres disrupted a Philippine maritime operation … putting lives at risk”.

The collisions usually arise from the cat-and-mouse games the boats engage in, as they attempt to chase the other side away.

China has increasingly blasted powerful water cannon and lasers at Philippine ships, with the Filipinos also accusing the Chinese of boarding their boats, leading to scuffles, as well as confiscating items and puncturing their inflatable vessels.

They were sentenced to four years in prison, but with two years suspended, the Kandal Provincial Court said.

The court said it had strong evidence showing that the women intended on having the babies “to sell to a third person in exchange for money, which is an act of human trafficking”.

The women are not expected to serve any jail time until giving birth, and the court did not say what will happen to the babies when they are born.

Surrogacy is illegal in Cambodia, but agencies continue to offer the service.

This case was unusual because surrogates are normally employed in their own countries, not transported elsewhere.

The women were found when police raided a villa near the capital Phnom Penh on 23 September.

After their arrest, Nicholas Felix Ty, undersecretary in the Philippines Department of Justice, said it was the women themselves who were “victims of human trafficking”.

But Cambodian interior minister Chou Bun Eng rejected the idea and said she considered the women to be responsible.

Four Vietnamese women and a further seven Filipino women were also caught, but were not pregnant so have been deported, Bun Eng said.

A Cambodian woman was jailed for two months and one day for acting as an accomplice by cooking meals for the mothers, the court said.

Developing countries are popular for surrogacy because costs are far lower.

The Cambodian commercial surrogacy industry began to boom in 2016 after the practice was made illegal in neighbouring Thailand.

Although banned later that year by the Cambodian government, it continued to thrive.

The AFP news agency reported couples from China will pay agencies anywhere between $40,000 (£31,600) and $100,000 (£79,000) to arrange for a Cambodian woman to carry their child.

In 2017, an Australian nurse who ran a surrogacy clinic was jailed for 18 months in Cambodia.

The following year, 32 surrogate mothers charged with human trafficking in Cambodia were released on the condition they raised the children themselves.

At least 74 left-wing complainants, including human rights and labour leaders, asked the country’s House of Representatives on Wednesday to unseat Duterte over the alleged misuse of government funds.

The request follows an impeachment motion filed earlier this week that focused on a recent public threat against the president. The incident has brought a power struggle between the pair’s powerful political clans to light.

Wednesday’s motion was over a “betrayal of public trust” concerning the misappropriation of 612.5 million pesos ($10.3m) in so-called “confidential funds”, and demanded that Duterte be permanently barred from office.

The complaint against the 46-year-old lawyer, daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, is the second in as many days.

On Monday, civil society and religious leaders submitted a case covering 24 alleged crimes and irregularities involving corruption and misconduct.

The complaints included the death threat that Duterte made against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr at a news conference last month, which is currently being probed by government investigators.

It also addressed her alleged role in her father’s brutal crackdown on illegal drugs while he was in office, which is under investigation by the International Criminal Court.

Duterte swept to power in 2022 in an alliance with Marcos but that has spectacularly collapsed in the leadup to elections in May, with their powerful families clashing.

Duterte has said that her instruction to have her estranged ally killed, which she revealed in late November, was not a plot to kill him but only meant to be triggered if any potential plot to assassinate her should be successful.

On Friday, Marcos drew criticism for warning that any impeachment complaint against his estranged vice president would only distract Congress and not help people.

In Wednesday’s complaint, activists said the vice president’s office spent 125 million pesos ($2m) over a period of 11 days during the Christmas holidays on suspicious expenditures, including renting “safe houses” and paying for unspecified confidential information.

The vice president, they alleged, had tried to cover up the misuse of public funds by submitting fabricated reports, receipts and documents and deliberately obstructing a congressional investigation.

“The impeachment is the antidote to impunity,” said Renato Reyes of Bayan, a left-wing political coalition. “Citizens and taxpayers need to hold public officials accountable.”

The impeachment complaints will be examined by the House of Representatives, which is dominated by allies of Marcos and his cousin and key backer, House Speaker Martin Romualdez – also targeted by Duterte in last month’s death threat – before a potential impeachment trial in the Senate.