The country’s southern regions have long been a breeding group for Islamic militancy, attracting foreign fighters to a network of shadowy training camps.

As Australian authorities try to retrace the steps and understand the motivations of the Bondi Beach gunmen who killed 15 people on Sunday, one key focus has emerged: their travel to the Philippines last month,

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been scrambling to quell public outrage over the massive corruption blamed for substandard, defective or nonexistent flood control projects.

According to the Philippine National Police, 119 rallies were organized by the Catholic Church, civil society movements, and others,

Manila could receive $2.5 billion in U.S. security assistance through the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), marking Washington’s most intensive defense investment into the Philippines since the Cold War.

The suspects in the Bondi Beach massacre in Sydney, Australia, were motivated by ISIS and had traveled to the Philippines, Australian officials said. The Philippine authorities then said that the two men had traveled to the city of Davao last month. It remains unclear what they were doing there.

Philippine officials say Chinese forces have fired three flares from an artificial island toward a Philippine plane undertaking a routine patrol in the disputed South China Sea.