A controversial birth control law came into effect in the Philippines Thursday after more than a decade of bitter opposition from the Catholic church, in an historic move welcomed by many women.

The law requires government health centers to hand out free condoms and birth control pills, benefiting the country's poor who would not otherwise have access, and mandates that sex education be taught in schools.

A fire swept through three adjacent hotels in a Philippine resort city early Friday, killing three American retirees, one South Korean and two Filipino women, authorities said.

One of the Americans was trapped on a staircase and the two others died in separate rooms in Olongapo city, a former U.S. naval base west of the capital, Manila, said disaster response official Angelito Layug.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida called Thursday for stronger ties with the Philippines to help ensure regional peace, amid tense territorial disputes by both countries with a rising China.

In his first foreign trip as top diplomat since last month's election of hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Kishida said such cooperation was dictated by big changes in the region's security equation, though he did not elaborate.

Hundreds of thousands of mostly barefoot Roman Catholic devotees joined a raucous procession through the streets of the Philippine capital Wednesday in an annual ritual to demonstrate faith and seek miracle cures for illnesses and a good life.

Police estimated about 500,000 people left from the parade grounds of Manila's Rizal Park for the daylong march that sees a statue of Jesus Christ pulled through the city's central district.

The United States confirmed Tuesday that it owned a drone found in Philippine waters, but said the craft only drifted into Filipino territory after crashing at sea four months ago.

The "unarmed target drone" was deployed from the guided missile destroyer USS Chafee in war games off the coast of Guam in September last year, the U.S. embassy in Manila said in a statement.

A U.S. drone believed to be used for reconnaissance was recovered on Monday in waters off the central Philippines, police and naval authorities said.

Fishermen found the 3.65 meter (12-foot) drone floating off Masbate island and dragged it to shore, said provincial police chief, Senior Superintendent Heriberto Olitoquit.

A gunman with a semi-automatic pistol killed seven people and wounded 11 others during a drug-fueled rampage in a slum near the Philippine capital on Friday, authorities said.

The ordeal, which ended when police shot the assailant dead, again raised concerns about the country's lax gun controls after the week began with two children dying from bullets fired by revelers to celebrate New Year's Eve.

A Catholic couple has asked the Philippines' top court to stop a historic birth control law, their lawyer said Thursday, in the first of many legal challenges church leaders have vowed against the measure.

The petition was filed Wednesday at the Supreme Court by lawyer James Imbong and his wife, who claim the law signed by President Benigno Aquino two weeks ago was unconstitutional.

The Philippines is to wind down a near-30-year hunt for the embezzled wealth of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, with more than half the supposed $10 billion fortune still missing, the man in charge of the search said.

With Marcos' widow and children back in positions of political power, and the government tightening its belt, the cost of the pursuit has become prohibitive, said Andres Bautista, head of the Presidential Commission on Good Government.

The death toll from a tropical storm that hit the central Philippines on Christmas Day has risen to 20, with more than 20,000 others left homeless, the government said Sunday.

More drowning victims as well as the body of an elderly man crushed by a fallen tree had been found on Panay island along with that of an electrocution victim, raising the number of dead by nine, the civil defense office said.