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RP sticking with US war on terror
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MANILA - The Philippines and its allies in the fight against terrorism got more reasons to stick together in the face of the devastating truck bomb attack on Marriott Hotel in Pakistan, a Malacañang official said on Sunday.

At least 53 people were killed, including Czech Ambassador Ivo Zdarek, while more than 270 others -- one of them a Filipino woman -- were injured in the Saturday night attack, described as one of the deadliest terrorist strikes in Pakistan.

The bombing has prompted the Philippine National Police to place its forces on alert.

"All the more we should have unity of purpose with our allies,'' Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said, shrugging off suggestions for the Philippines to review its policy of supporting the US-led global fight against terror.

Dureza described terrorism as a "global menace'' and said that everyone should help quash it.

Like Pakistan, President Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration has allied itself with the United States in the war on terror. Since 2001, the Philippines has allowed US special forces to train Filipino troops in fighting terror groups in the South.

The Filipino bombing victim, a female hotel receptionist, was "in critical condition" in an Islamabad, Pakistan hospital, after sustaining injuries in the Marriot Hotel attack, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

The woman, who is married to a Pakistani national, is being treated at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, according to the DFA statement.

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