Blast at market kills 12 in Philippines

An explosion at a packed night market in the home city of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte killed at least 12 people on Friday and wounded dozens more, officials said, but the cause of the blast was not immediately clear.

The blast tore through a street market outside the high-end Marco Polo hotel, a frequent haunt of Duterte, who was in the southern city of Davao at the time but was not hurt.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella, speaking to CNN Philippines, described the blast as an "unspecified explosion". There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

"There is nothing definite about it but it has resulted in the death of ... at least 10 persons, and injury of about 60," Abella said. Police later said two of at least 30 people taken to hospital had since died, bringing the toll to 12.

Regional police chief Manuel Guerlan said a ring of checkpoints had been thrown around the city's exit points.

Duterte had earlier yesterday shrugged off rumours of a plot to assassinate him, saying such threats were to be expected.

He is hugely popular in Davao, having served as its mayor for more than 22 years before his stunning national election win in May, garnered from the popularity of a promised war on drugs.

His election has prompted a spike in drug-related killings, with more than 2,000 people killed since he took office on June 30, nearly half of them in police operations.

Duterte's son Paolo Duterte, who is vice mayor of the city, told Reuters that his father was nowhere near the scene of the blast, which happened around 10:30 pm, and afterwards was safe at a police station.

Davao is located in Mindanao, a large southern island beset by decades of Muslim insurgency. The region is also home to Abu Sayyaf, a rebel group loosely linked to Islamic State and notorious for making tens of millions of dollars from kidnappings.

However, Davao itself is largely peaceful and Duterte has been credited with transforming it from a lawless town to a southern commercial hub for call centres and offshore business processing services.