China on Sunday slammed the Philippines for challenging its territorial claims over the South China Sea through international arbitration, refusing to back down just a week before a deadline to respond in the case.

The Philippines infuriated China in March by filing a formal plea with a United Nations tribunal challenging Beijing's maritime claims.

Typhoon Hagupit tore apart homes and sent waves crashing through coastal communities across the eastern Philippines on Sunday, creating more misery for millions following a barrage of deadly disasters.

The typhoon roared in from the Pacific Ocean and into remote fishing communities on Samar island on Saturday night with wind gusts of 210 kilometers (130 miles) an hour, local weather agency Pagasa said.

Heavy rain and strong winds began to hit the eastern Philippines Saturday ahead of a giant storm threatening more devastation to areas yet to recover from a super typhoon that killed thousands.

Typhoon Hagupit was moving slowly in the Pacific Ocean towards the disaster-plagued Southeast Asian nation and is expected to make landfall before dawn on Sunday, forecasters said.

Millions of people in the Philippines sought shelter in churches, schools and other makeshift evacuation centers on Friday as Typhoon Hagupit bore down on the disaster-weary nation.

The storm, which would be the strongest to hit the Southeast Asian archipelago this year, is expected to impact more than half the nation including communities devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan last year.

Torture of suspected criminals by police in the Philippines has thrived under the administration of President Benigno Aquino, human rights monitor Amnesty International said Thursday.

Dozens of beatings, rapes and electrocutions are being recorded by the country's human rights commission every year, with many other cases going unreported, Amnesty secretary general Salil Shetty told reporters.

Senior Philippine officials on Thursday insisted the government will not release nine Chinese fishermen who were convicted of poaching in disputed waters, defying pressure from Beijing.

President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Herminio Coloma said the nine, who were convicted on Monday for catching endangered sea turtles, merely have to pay a fine in order to walk free.

China called on the Philippines Tuesday to release nine Chinese fisherman convicted of poaching after they were detained while in disputed waters, saying the incident was a violation of Beijing's sovereignty.

The nine, arrested in May, were fined $100,000 each for poaching with an additional 120,000 pesos ($2,730) fine for catching an endangered species, prosecutor Allen Ross Rodriguez said Monday in the town of Puerto Princesa on Palawan island.

The Philippines will review its entry ban on nine Hong Kong journalists who shouted questions at President Benigno Aquino during a summit in Indonesia last year, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said Monday.

Journalist groups have expressed concern at the blacklisting, which threatens to sour ties that Hong Kong and the Philippines have been trying to repair since eight Hong Kong tourists were killed in Manila in 2010.

Top officials vowed on Sunday to deliver justice as the Philippines marked the fifth anniversary of a political massacre that killed 58 with no one yet convicted and several would-be witnesses murdered.

Under a burning sun hundreds of relatives and supporters of the victims, guarded by scores of military men, congregated on a hillside in the town of Ampatuan on the southern island of Mindanao where the bodies were dumped on November 23, 2009.

The Philippines said Saturday it had banned certain foreign journalists from the country over an incident last year, when President Benigno Aquino was taunted by a group of Hong Kong reporters during a visit to Indonesia.

The immigration bureau said the journalists, whom it did not name, were blacklisted on the recommendation of the intelligence services over "acts committed against the president during a summit in Bali, Indonesia".