PRESS DIGEST - Philippine newspapers - July 15

MANILA, July 15 (Reuters) - These are the leading stories in Manila newspapers on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories.

- The Supreme Court rejected three petitions questioning the vailidity of the contrversial telecoms contract that the Philippine awarded to China's ZTE Corp. (THE MANILA TIMES, MALAYA, BUSINESSWORLD)

- President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not inclined to back proposals seeking to scrap the value-added tax on oil, saying that the fiscal reform was shielding the country from rising world prices of food and fuel. (BUSINESSWORLD, MALAYA)

- South Korea's Hanjin Heavy Industries Corp (003480.KS) was ordered to stop operations after another worker died in an accident in its shipyard in Subic Bay freeport zone, northwest of Manila. (THE PHILIPPINE STAR)

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BUSINESS

- The government's debt stock slightly dropped 0.7 percent to 3.87 trillion pesos ($86 billion) in April from a year earlier, data from the Bureau of Treasury showed. (BUSINESSWORLD, PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER, THE PHILIPPINE STAR, MANILA STANDARD TODAY, THE MANILA TIMES)

- Aboitiz Power Corp (AP.PS) will spend about $426 million to double the capacity of its 232-megawatt coal-fired plant in Misamis Oriental province on the northern tip of Mindanao. (THE PHILIPPINE STAR) - The government plans to privatise 555 megawatts of National Power Corp's generating capacity next year, in a bid to ensure energy security, the National Economic Development Authority said. (THE MANILA TIMES)

($1 = 45.24 Philippine pesos)

(Reporting by Karen Lema)