Philippine President Benigno Aquino urged parliament Wednesday to save a Muslim rebel peace deal after it was jeopardized by a bungled anti-terror raid that killed 44 police commandos.

Public pressure is growing for retribution after Sunday's bloodbath on the southern island of Mindanao, the worst loss of life by the country's police or troops in recent memory.

Two people were killed in a bomb blast in the Southern Philippines on Tuesday, the military said, the latest in a series of violent incidents in the strife-torn region in barely a week.

Two men riding a motorcycle, and believed to be carrying the bomb, were killed when it exploded in Pikit on the island of Mindanao, according to Joan Petinglay, regional military spokeswoman.

The Philippines investigated a report that a Malaysian suicide bomber was planning to try to kill Pope Francis during the pontiff's visit to Manila this month, Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas said Tuesday.

Filipino police and soldiers threw up a massive operation involving nearly 40,000 personnel to protect the pope during the January 15-19 visit, which went off without any reported security incidents.

The Philippines said there was a "high likelihood" a Malaysian militant suspected of being behind the 2002 Bali bombings was killed in a controversial operation in the country's south that left 44 police dead.

Sunday's offensive against "high-value targets" including Zulkifli bin Hir -- one of the United States's most wanted militants with a $5 million bounty on his head -- turned into a bloodbath, with President Benigno Aquino ordering a probe into the incident.

More than 40 Philippine police commandos were killed in an 11-hour firefight with Muslim rebels which erupted while they were chasing one of the region's most wanted militants, police said Monday.

The clash -- which broke out despite a peace pact with the main rebel group -- was "the single largest loss of life in recent memory by our security forces", said interior minister Manuel Roxas.

President Benigno Aquino flew on Sunday to a southern city hit by a deadly bombing to comfort dozens of casualties and vow to bring those responsible to justice, a spokesman said.

An explosion near a bus terminal in the port of Zamboanga killed two people and wounded 50 others on Friday, Press Secretary Herminio Coloma said over government radio.

French President Francois Hollande will visit the typhoon-ravaged Philippines in February to build momentum for crucial climate change talks that France is hosting this year, his environment envoy said Friday.

Hollande hopes his visit would give a human face to climate change, as the Philippines bears the brunt of dozens of deadly storms every year, including the strongest on record, Super Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, Nicolas Hulot told reporters.

One person was killed and 48 others injured Friday as a parked car exploded in the southern Philippines, with the local authorities blaming the blast on al-Qaida-linked Islamic militants.

Witnesses told police a parked car went up in flames and was torn to pieces in a powerful mid-afternoon blast that shattered glass panels in a commercial section on Zamboanga city's outskirts.

The United States has lifted restrictions on a small portion of its military assistance to the Philippines that was withheld over human rights concerns, the foreign minister said Thursday.

The gesture affects about $15 million dollars that have been withheld over the last five years, a fraction of Washington's total military assistance to the South East Asian island.

The Philippines' foreign minister on Thursday slammed China's attempts to build islands in the disputed South China Sea, prompting Beijing to accuse Manila of making "trouble out of nothing".

Albert del Rosario repeated a warning that Beijing was reclaiming land around isolated reefs in the South China Sea to turn them into islands which could hold fortified positions or even airstrips.