The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) estimated 191,597 people were displaced and 40 were injured.
Out of the total number of people affected, only 24,894 were in shelters set up in the central and northern regions of the country, Efe news reported.
Local authorities declared a state of calamity in Camarines Sur, a province in Bicol region, which has a population of almost 2 million.
The measure will speed up the disbursement of funds to the affected and repair damage to the infrastructure network.
Eastern Visayas, along with Bicol, was another region hardest hit by Usman, a tropical depression that arrived on Saturday and was now outside the country.
The Philippines is hit by between 15 and 20 typhoons each year during the rainy or monsoon season, which usually begins in May or June and ends in November or December.
The environmental movement, launched in 2016, has helped clear the coasts of 42 countries around the world of discarded plastics.
"These brand audits offer undeniable proof of the role that corporations play in perpetuating the global plastic pollution crisis," said Von Hernandez, the Global Coordinator of Break Free From Plastic, at the presentation of the study in Manila.
Between September 9 and 15, over 10,000 volunteers carried out 239 plastic cleaning actions on coasts and other natural environments in 42 countries, Efe news reported.
They collected more than 187,000 pieces of plastic, of which more than 65 per cent were from products by Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle. But companies such as Danone, Mondelez, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever, among others, were also mentioned in the report.
"The companies have a choice to make. They can be part of the problem or they can be part of the solution", Hernandez told Efe.
"If they continue the use of problematic and unnecessary plastic packaging they are just encouraging more production and more pollution".
Around 100,000 pieces of plastic collected were made of materials like polystyrene, PVC (polyvinyl chloride), PET (polyethylene terephthalate) or the film of single-use plastic that were not biodegradable, the report said.
Plastic production has reached 320 million metric tonnes per year and is expected to grow by 40 per cent over the next decade, which will exponentially increase the release of greenhouse gases. Ninety per cent of plastics are produced from fossil fuels and pollutants.
"We must act now to demand that corporate brands reject their overpackaging habit in order to meaningfully reverse the demand for new plastic," said Hernandez.
The study said that these large corporations must take responsibility for polluting the environment, as production of plastics exposes harmful substances to communities living near factories and pollutes foods and products contained in plastic wraps.
Eighty per cent of the 8.3 billion metric tonnes of plastic produced since 1950 was still present in the environment, mainly in the oceans, according to studies cited in the "Break Free From Plastic" report.
Since then, only 9 per cent of that plastic had been properly recycled and 12 per cent incinerated.
Presidential adviser Francis Tolentino confirmed these figures in Cagayan province, where the season's most powerful typhoon made landfall on Saturday morning, reports Efe news.
Most of the deaths occurred due to landslides in mountainous regions, which received torrential rainfall and strong winds during Mangkhut's passage.
Twenty of them occurred in Cordillera region, four in Nueva Ecija and one in Ilocos, according to national government figures.
According to Tolentino, at the moment there is no information on victims in the provinces of Cagayan and Isabela, on the north-eastern coast of the island of Luzon.
President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to visit the affected areas on Sunday and inspect the damage.
After making landfall in Baggao in the north-eastern most tip of the country, Mangkhut caused wind gusts of up to 305 kph, torrential rains, floods and waves of up to six metres.
In its westward trajectory, the typhoon weakened slightly and left the Philippine area of responsibility at around 9 p.m., heading towards Hong Kong with sustained winds of 170 kph.
Mangkhut, the strongest storm anywhere on the planet in 2018, made landfall in Cagayan province, on the northern tip of Luzon Island at about 2.30 a.m., with gusts as high as 325 km per hour, reports CNN.
After the centre of the storm passed the Philippines, Mangkhut's winds slowed enough for the typhoon to lose its "super" status, but it remains a very powerful storm system with maximum sustained winds of 215 kph, equivalent to a category 4 hurricane.
It's now pounding the Philippines with heavy rain, and heading west into the South China Sea towards Hong Kong and southern China.
An estimated 5.2 million people are within 125 km of the projected path of the super typhoon, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
The scale of the typhoon could be felt in the Philippines capital Manila, more than 340 km from the eye of the storm, where heavy overnight rains have led to widespread flooding in urban areas.
Mangkhut is on track to be as strong as super typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 6,000 people dead in the Philippines in 2013, though that storm hit a more populated part of the country.
Northern Luzon was also devastated in 2016 by super typhoon Haima, with 14,000 houses destroyed and 50,000 homes damaged, according to CNN Philippines.
Mangkhut is expected to make landfall early Sunday in southern China. It will make another landfall on Sunday night in western Guangdong.
In a speech delivered on Tuesday night at the presidential palace, Duterte, who has sought improved ties with Beijing since taking office two years ago, called on China to respect countries' right of passage through waters Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands.
He said that it was "wrong" that China claims these disputed waters as its territories since they are "considered a part of international sea" and "the right of innocent passage is guaranteed", according to the official transcript of a speech provided on Wednesday.
"You cannot create an island. It's man-made and you say that the air above these artificial islands is yours," Duterte was cited as saying by Efe news.
Despite a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) two years ago which attributed the rights in the area to Manila, Beijing went on to occupy the territories and build large artificial islands with military facilities.
"They have to rethink that, because that would be a flashpoint someday and even, you know, warning others," he said.
In recent weeks, the Philippines media has published videos and recordings of radio transmissions in which the Chinese Coast Guards, in a threatening tone, asked foreign boats to leave the disputed waters.
The Philippines, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei claim all or parts of the Spratly Islands, but Beijing has built artificial islands on the reefs to de facto appropriate them.
This is the first time that Duterte has openly condemned the Chinese military presence in the disputed Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands.
During his two years in office, he chose not to explicitly claim Manila's rights over them, by virtue of the favourable ruling of the PCA, in exchange for Chinese investment.
Police officers and demonstrators were injured in the clashes that erupted when officers blocked the protesters from marching towards the convention centre where Trump is attending the Summit, reports Efe news.
The demonstrators, many of whom came from left-wing groups, carried an effigy of Trump with four arms in the shape of a Nazi swastika, each of them carrying a missile, a bulldozer symbolising the exploitation of natural resources, a gun and a bag of money.
In addition to chanting slogans against the US President, some protesters also carried placards describing Asean as "neoliberal" and "privatising".
The Asean summit opened on Monday, with the member countries - Myanmar, Brunei, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - participating in the meetings.
The bloc will also hold bilateral meetings with the US, China, South Korea and Japan, among others.
The meetings will culminate on Tuesday with the East Asia Summit, which will include Australia, the US, India and Russia, in addition to the Asean countries.
The Philippines, Asean's rotating chair for 2017, set the theme of "Partnering for Change, Engaging the World", putting security and regional integrity high on the agenda, reports Xinhua news agency.
At the opening ceremony, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said that the next two days will present excellent opportunities for Asean leaders and their dialogue partners to engage in meaningful discussions on matters of regional and intentional importance.
"Terrorism and violent extremism endanger the peace, stability and security of our region because these threats know no boundaries," he said, adding that piracy and armed robbery on the seas also put a dent on growth and disrupt the stability of both regional and global commerce.
The non-traditional security issues are challenging "the prosperity of regional economies, the integrity of our institutions, and more importantly the safety of Asean people", Duterte said.
On regional cooperation, Duterte said it "has been a pleasure to work with our Asean family and the dialogue partners in moving the Asean community forward in enhancing cooperation in various areas".
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also attended the opening ceremony.
Related meetings scheduled for Monday and Tuesday include the Asean+1 summits, Asean+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) Summit and the East Asia Summit.
Asean countries and more than 10 dialogue partners, including international organisations such as the European Union (EU) and the UN, will discuss issues of common concern.
Leaders of 10 Asean countries and six of its dialogue partners, namely Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, will meet for their first Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) leaders' meeting on Tuesday, the first such meeting after related negotiations started in 2012.
Asean Secretary General Le Luong Minh will attend the meeting.
At the closing ceremony of the Asean summit and related summits on Tuesday, Duterte will hand over the chairmanship of Asean to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, the incoming chair for 2018.
Established in 1967, Asean, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
The Asean Community, with the Political-Security Community, the Economic Community and the Socio-Cultural Community as three pillars, was established at the end of 2015.
Police said the clashes occurred in the early hours of the day in Mamasapano town.
Restituto Padilla, spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said army soldiers were later deployed to retrieve the body of the slain policemen. He said the military retrieved bodies of "nine out of the more than 30 (policemen) killed".
While the military helped in extricating police casualties, the policemen were conducting operations against lawless elements and carrying out a warrant of arrest, Padilla added.
The displaced people were taken to 45 evacuation centres authorized by the authorities in the most affected municipalities of San Nicolas, Balete, Talisay, Lipa (Batangas province) and Tagaytay (Cavite), according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
The regional civil defence spokesperson, Lexie Masiglat, told Efe news that the evacuation protocol was still ongoing, meaning that the number of evacuees was set to continue increasing over the next hours.
Of those evacuated, some 2,000 people are residents of the small volcanic island on Lake Taal that is starting to erupt.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) raised the threat level from 1 to 4 on a scale of 5 after an increase in activity within Taal's crater resulted in the billowing of a huge plume of smoke that reached heights of around 1 km.
An alert level of 4 implies that a dangerous eruption could be imminent and that there is a risk of a volcanic tsunami, as Taal - one of the smallest volcanoes in the world - is located in the middle of the lake.
The director of PHILVOCS, Renato Solidum, said in a Monday press conference that the spewing of lava does not mean that the volcano has necessarily entered the dangerous explosive eruption phase, though he did not reject that possibility, either.
In the last 24 hours, up to 75 earthquakes of volcanic origin have been recorded, 32 of them of noticeable intensity, including one of magnitude 3.8 during early Monday morning.
Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila and Clark International Airport (about 90 km north of the capital), partially resumed operations after having been shut down due to lack of visibility, leading to the cancellation of at least 109 international and 87 domestic flights that left thousands of passengers stranded.
Educational institutions and government offices in Manila and Calabarzon region, where the provinces of Batangas and Cavite - most affected by the eruption - are located, have been suspended.
The areas surrounding the volcano have been covered by a thick layer of ash and toxic smoke, prompting the health department to recommend against going outdoors or using masks and glasses if doing so.
The department also discouraged people from driving, as visibility is limited and the ground has become slippery because of ash.
Teams from the Philippine Red Cross have moved to the area to assist in evacuation efforts, while the Philippine Armed Forces have been put on alert and sent five trucks to move evacuees.
The volcano, which has erupted 33 times since 1572, killed some 1,300 people in an eruption in 1911 and 200 in 1965.
Taal volcano is an island within the lake of the same name, located within a caldera formed by a previous eruption and is part of a volcanic chain that extends through the western region of the island of Luzon.
(IANS)
Western Mindanao Command chief Lieutenant General Corleto Vinluan said the victims also comprised five soldiers and four civilians, while 18 soldiers and 22 civilians were among the injured in the back-to-back blasts, reports Xinhua news agency.
Lieutenant Colonel Ronaldo Mateo, the spokesman for the army's 11th infantry division based in Sulu, said a bomb attached to a parked motorcycle exploded at 11.53 a.m. in front of a grocery store, while the second occurred at 1 p.m. near the cathedral in Jolo, the provincial capital.
He said troops were deployed in the area to secure the busy street, adding that soldiers and policemen were posted in the area daily to maintain peace and order.
He said the motorcycle was parked beside a military truck just outside the store before the bomb detonated.
"Two to three minutes after the motorcycle was parked, the improvised explosive device went off," he said.
"The second bomb is believed to have been carried out by a suicide bomber," Mateo added.
The military is verifying reports that the second explosion was carried out by a female bomber.
"Most probably these terrorist acts may have been perpetrated by the Abu Sayyaf group," Mateo said.
Jolo has long been a stronghold for the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group.
Twin blasts hit the Jolo cathedral on January 27, 2019, that killed 23 and injured 95.
(IANS)
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