The Philippines said Monday that peace talks with communist rebels had collapsed and a target of ending the decades-long insurgency by 2016 was impossible to achieve.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino's administration is looking for a "new approach" following nearly three years of failed negotiations and a fresh surge in deadly violence, chief government negotiator Alex Padilla told Agence France Presse.

Gunmen killed 13 people in an ambush on a Philippine mayor, police said Friday, in the deadliest of a string of violent incidents that have marred campaigning for May elections.

The attackers opened fire on a truck carrying Mayor Abdulmalik Manamparan and his supporters late Thursday, killing 12 on the spot with another dying later, and leaving 10 wounded, including the mayor, police said.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino's youngest sister, movie star and TV show host Kris Aquino, was the country's top taxpayer, beating many of its wealthiest tycoons, the tax commissioner said Tuesday.

Kristina "Kris" Aquino, 42, paid 49.87 million pesos ($1.22 million), topping the list of individual taxpayers in 2011, according to a list released by the internal revenue bureau.

The Philippine health department warned the public on Friday against electronic cigarettes, saying the tobacco substitute could turn children into smokers.

E-cigarettes have been gaining favor among Filipinos as higher tobacco taxes make smoking more expensive.

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino troops began annual military exercises on Friday which the Philippines said were vital to building its defense capabilities against the rising threat of China.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario used the launch of the 12-day Balikatan manoeuvres to accuse China of destabilizing Asia with aggressive and illegal actions in the South China Sea.

A moderate earthquake shook buildings in the Philippine capital Manila on Thursday, seismologists said, although there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties according to the government.

The quake struck in the rural north of the country, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology chief Renato Solidum told Agence France Presse, describing it as "moderate" and adding he did not expect damage in the capital.

Short people hoping to join the long arm of the law in the Philippines will be left disappointed after President Benigno Aquino vetoed a bill removing height requirements for police on Monday.

Parliament had passed a bill repealing minimum height requirements for the police, fire service and jail guards, but the president felt that some jobs required people of a certain stature, his spokeswoman Abigail Valte said.

Catholic zealots in the Philippines re-enacted the last hours of Jesus Christ on Good Friday, whipping their backs and nailing themselves to crosses in a grisly Easter ritual that persists despite Church disapproval.

Foreign and local tourists flocked to the outskirts of the city of San Fernando, a 90-minute drive from Manila, to see the annual spectacle where a Christian "passion play" is taken to its blood-soaked extreme.

Teresita Mabignay does her ironing using free electricity on the slope of a garbage dump, an unlikely beneficiary of efforts to turn the Philippines' growing rubbish problems into a clean-energy windfall.

Mabignay lives at the base of one of Manila's largest landfills, which was the first in the country to have its methane gas converted into power as part of a United Nations' program aimed at tackling climate change.

Twelve people died when a mini-tornado caused an overloaded boat to capsize in remote southern Philippine marshes, a local official said on Wednesday.

The small motorboat, designed for 10 passengers, was carrying 18 people from a small town through marshland on Mindanao island on Monday night when the accident happened, said the local mayor, Alan Aguas.