The Philippines was poised to officially quit the International Criminal Court on Sunday, though the beleaguered tribunal has pledged to pursue its examination of possible crimes in the government's deadly drug war.

The Philippine military believes it may have ‘neutralised’ the remnants of an alliance of pro-Islamic State militants, after the suspected death of the group's de facto leader during clashes last week.

Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated his desire to change the name of the Philippines weeks after he said the late president Ferdinand Marcos was right in wanting to change the country's name to ‘Maharlika.’

The Philippine Department of Justice on Friday said it had found probable cause to indict officials from French drugmaker Sanofi and former and current Philippine health officials over 10 deaths it said were linked to use of a dengue vaccine.

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who has repeatedly clashed with President Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested in her Manila office on Wednesday in what rights advocates called an act of "persecution".

A Philippine police officer on Monday filed criminal complaints against a Chinese woman who threw a soft tofu drink at him during an argument at an overhead train station in the capital.

Three children left alone at home were killed in a fire that raced through a shantytown in the southern Philippines, a fire marshal said Saturday.

A leftist activist was shot dead on Wednesday while sleeping inside a passenger bus in the Philippines, police said. The bus was on a stopover in a terminal in the town of Aritao in Nueva Vizcaya province, 180 kilometres north of Manila, when two gunmen boarded it and shot Randy Malayao, 49.

A grenade attack on a mosque in the troubled southern Philippines killed two people early Wednesday, authorities said, just days after a deadly Catholic cathedral bombing and a vote backing Muslim self-rule in the region.

Frenchman Alain Robert - dubbed "spiderman" for his exploits - was arrested in the Philippines on Tuesday after free-climbing one of country's tallest buildings.

More than 40 tons of garbage were removed from the shores of the Philippines' Manila Bay on Sunday at the start of a campaign to clean up the polluted stretch of coastline.

The Philippines vowed to destroy those behind twin bombings that killed 27 people during a Sunday church service in the country's restive south.