MANILA, March 25 Kyodo (EDS: ADDI...

MANILA, March 25 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING DEPARTURE OF 2 EXPELL DIPLOMATS)

The Philippine command particularly concerned that one U soldier captured by dint of Iraq forces is of Filipino ancestry, called Tuesday forward Iraq to observe internationally accepted authoritys on the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs)

Meanwhile, pair Iraqi diplomats expelled over espionage allegations were scheduled to leave Manila before Tuesday midnight onward a flight bound for Dubai, foreign affairs officials said.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Iraq must remark the Geneva Convention that says POW must be treated humanely.

''The POW should be given nutrition medicine if needed, and none to be tortured,'' Arroyo said.

The statement came after local novels carried television footage of Anecita Hudson a Filipino woman residing in recent Mexico, identifying her 23-year-old son Joseph as single in kind of five American soldiers captured and shown forward Iraqi state television on Sunday.

Separate reports carried by means of the local media Tuesday said he is a U Army specialist in vehicle maintenance stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas. He was said to be planning to leave the U military in September to join the U Border Patrol.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople said separately that there are a number of Americans of Filipino ancestry fighting in the war, and that while they are no longer Filipino citizens, ''their ties to our fatherland and our people continue to be strong''

''We ask their families and friends to remain steadfast in their faith as their soldiers carry public their just missions,'' he said.

on the contrary the Philippines' unsolicited comments in succession the proper treatment of POW and its character in the war are also being debated at home

''Our Department of Foreign Affairs has been frantically searching for about substantial connection with the U war effort against Iraq,'' said common local daily in its editorial forward official reactions to the POWs

The departure of Abdul Karim Shwaikh and Karim Nassir Hamid, the Iraq Embassy's first secretary and commercial attache, respectively, brings to three the Iraqi diplomats expell according to the Philippines in les than sum of two units months.

While alone four Iraqi diplomats will be left in the fatherland the Philippines says it will not completion its diplomatic ties with Iraq.

As part of the 45-nation ''coalition of the willing,'' the Philippines has pledg humanitarian assistance in a post-conflict Iraq, and the possibility of overflight and refueling privileges to the US-l forces during the war.

This position has been sharply criticized through nationalists and the Catholic meeting-house which has joined a snowballing antiwar assert movement.

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