A Filipino village chief held hostage by Islamic militants has been found beheaded on a highway on the remote southern island of Jolo, police officials said Wednesday.

Rodolfo Boligao was captured in May by the Abu Sayyaf, an Al-Qaida-linked group in the Southern Philippines that has gained international notoriety for bombings and kidnapping sprees.

Five people have died and three more are missing as floods hit two southern Philippine cities, forcing about 400 residents to flee their submerged homes, officials said Wednesday.

Swollen rivers burst their banks and unleashed waist-deep floods on shanty towns in the cities of Malaybalay and Valencia on Mindanao island this week, provincial civil defense chief Ana Caneda told AFP.

Southeast Asian diplomats said Tuesday that China's controversial island-building drive is raising regional tensions, with the Philippines slamming its "unilateral and aggressive activities".

The U.S. and some Southeast Asian states have watched with growing alarm as Beijing expands tiny reefs in the South China Sea, topping some with military posts to reinforce its disputed claims over the strategic waters and fanning fears of future conflict.

As she eyes the colourful ice creams on offer at a Baskin-Robbins in one of Manila's most luxurious shopping centres, Philippine teenager Jamie Gamboa admits to being an incurable mall rat -- but not only for the shopping.

"It is the only place where you can just walk around without having to spend, and there are a lot of things to entertain us," said the petite 16-year-old, surrounded by a gaggle of friends.

A powerful explosion tore through a nightclub in the strife-torn southern Philippines, killing one person and wounding nine others, police said Friday.

The blast punctured the ceiling of the two-story club and threw bar stools into the streets of Zamboanga City late Thursday evening, police spokesman Alexander Mabalot said.

The Philippines plans to station fighter jets and frigates on a former U.S. naval base facing the South China Sea, where it is engaged in a maritime row with China, a defense official said Monday.

They will be located in Subic Bay, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) from a shoal off the northern Philippines controlled by Chinese forces, said Arsenio Andolong, the defense department's public affairs chief.

The Philippines on Sunday hailed what it termed growing international support for its efforts to counter China's claims to most of the South China Sea.

The comments from a presidential spokesman came as the U.S. Pacific Fleet released photographs of its commander in a surveillance flight over the sea, where tension is rising between Manila and Beijing.

Four people were killed and thousands forced to flee their homes as floods inundated large parts of the northern Philippines, the government said Sunday.

Heavy monsoon rains lashed the largely agricultural provinces for days, bringing floods that left roads impassable and led about 3,000 people to be evacuated, government civil defense officers said.

The Philippines said Wednesday it is seeking to recoup $12.5 million in assets from Janet Napoles, a Filipina businesswoman at the centre of a massive corruption scandal, as the United States attempts to seize her possessions.

The U.S. Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint Tuesday to gain control of assets purchased in the U.S. with money intended for development and disaster relief in a case dubbed the "pork barrel scam".

The Philippines has appealed to an international tribunal to declare China's claims to most of the South China Sea illegal, warning the integrity of United Nations' maritime laws is at stake.

In opening comments to the tribunal in the Hague on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the Philippines had sought judicial intervention because China's behavior had become increasingly "aggressive" and negotiations had proved futile.