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The government, in a reversal of its earlier policy, announced yesterday that it would execute by lethal injection some 17 death convicts this year, despite possible reaction from the strong Catholic Church, Justice Secretary Hernando Perez said.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has confirmed a coup plot by the shadowy Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA) to destabilise the government of President Gloria Arroyo.

The Supreme Court voted 10-3 and upheld the validity of the joint Philippine-U.S. wargames in Mindanao, but added that U.S. troops should not engage in combat operations to flush out the Abu Sayyaf.

The Supreme Court has denied the request of former Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Nur Misuari to transfer the hearing of his rebellion case from Sta. Rosa, Laguna, southern Luzon to his hometown in Jolo, southern Philippines.

A former official of the Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Task Force who linked three proteges of the former police chief and now Senator Panfilo Lacson to the murder of publicist Salvador 'Bubby' Dacer in November 2000 will be allowed to testify in court, reports said yesterday.

Prison officials have padlocked the makeshift congressional office of imprisoned Congr-essman Romeo Jalosjos in the national penitentiary three days after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction for raping an 11-year old child in 1997.

The department of justice has formed a four-man panel to investigate and pin down arrested fugitive and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) chairman Nur Misuari on charges of rebellion when he arrives from Malaysia in mid-January.

An Indonesian national has told investigators his group, the Jama'ah Islamiyah, gave three Filipino Muslims $5,000 -the money they required to bomb the elevated train system in Manila on December 31.

Charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against an Indonesian national allegedly a member of the regional extremist group, 'Jumaah Al Islamiya' were rejected on Tuesday by the department of justice.

One of the three Indonesians held last March at Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) for alleged possession of explosives has been named by an arrested colleague in Singapore as the brains behind the December 30, 2000, bombings in Manila and an assassination attempt on a Filipino diplomat in Jakarta November of the same year.

President Gloria Arroyo has allowed the execution of two of the 17 convicts on death row on October 16, said a source, who did not identify the two convicts.

Two witnesses against former police chief Panfilo Lacson in the alleged rub-out case of arrested bank robbers in 1995, now fear for their lives with the revival of the case.