MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine soldiers and rescue workers scoured the ruins of a collapsed housing estate in Manila for survivors Friday as relatives of the dozens still buried three days after the disaster said they had given up hope.

''We are still in the rescue mode although hopes may be dimming,'' Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado told Reuters in a telephone interview after rescue workers said they had so far found 33 bodies in the rubble of the Cherry Hills housing estate.

Between 30 to 40 people are believed

Heavy rain triggerred by the La Nina weather phenomenon began falling Monday and by Tuesday morning five city districts and 10 surrounding villages were under water, said Lieutenant Michelle Anayron of the army's civil defense office here.

"We are checking if there are casualties," she added. The floodwaters destroyed a bridge and damaged several hundred

MANILA, Feb 23 (AFP) - Floods killed 39 people in the southern Philippines last weekend as the weather pattern known as La Niña inflicted torrential rain on the southern island of Mindanao, officials and experts said Tuesday.

The Lanao region deluge, which also displaced 2,700 people, followed another bout of heavy flooding in the Agusan river basin of Mindanao earlier this month which left 24 dead, eight missing and nearly half a million homeless.

"We are now paying dearly for our crimes against nature," Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado told a news