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By John O'Callaghan

MANILA, March 5 (Reuters) - Philippine investigators were interrogating five suspected Muslim rebels on Wednesday after a bomb tore through a shelter at a southern airport, killing 20 people, including an American missionary, and wounding 144.

Defence officials said they could not rule out that Tuesday's blast in the city of Davao may signal the start of a wave of concerted attacks in a largely Roman Catholic country that already faces periodic violence by Muslim separatists.

"We have to assume there are plans, so we are taking the necessary precautions," Defence Secretary Angelo Reyes said in a television interview.

"Right now, there are several theories. Nothing has been confirmed."

Reyes said one incident would not derail a new series of counter-terrorism training exercises with U.S. special forces set to start soon.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who called the airport bombing a "brazen act of terrorism", flew to Davao with Reyes as police and the military stepped up security across the country.

Beyond the immediate concerns about further violence, the attack will do nothing to shore up investor confidence that has been shaken by bulging budget deficits, weak tax collection, anaemic export growth and pervasive corruption.

The peso plunged to 25-month lows against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday morning before stabilising slightly. The main stock index was 1.2 percent lower.

WORST ATTACK SINCE DECEMBER 2000

Dozens of people waiting for arriving passengers were huddled in the shelter during a downpour when the bomb went off, ripping off the iron roof and splattering the walls with blood.

An hour later, a home-made bomb went off outside a health centre in the nearby town of Tagum, killing one person and wounding three, police said.

"I saw people lying on the ground. They looked dead," said Teresita Lebado, an airport employee in Davao.

A dazed young girl cried out: "Mama, mama".

No one has claimed responsibility for the worst terror attack in the Philippines since 22 people were killed in December 2000 by a bomb at a Manila rail station blamed on Muslim rebels.

Military and government officials pointed the finger at the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest of four Muslim guerrilla groups operating on the southern island of Mindanao.

The mayor of Davao, Rodrigo Duterte, said five suspects were in custody. Interior Secretary Jose Lina told reporters those being interrogated were "identified as members of the MILF".

The MILF denied any involvement on Tuesday.

Philippine soldiers overran one of the group's key bases near the town of Pikit in central Mindanao in mid-February after a week of fierce fighting.

The military has said several recent bombings, including an attack on power pylons that blacked out much of the island, were reprisal attacks by the MILF.

The group denies aiming at civilians and says the military is its only target.

U.S. VOWS TO HELP TRACK SUSPECTS

The 20 people killed in the airport blast included an American missionary, whom the Davao Medical Center named as William Hyde, 58, from Iowa. Three other Americans -- two missionaries and an infant -- were hurt.

"The United States will work shoulder-to-shoulder with the Philippine government to make certain that those responsible are brought to justice," U.S. President George W. Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington.

U.S. special forces are now training Philippine soldiers in the city of Zamboanga, about 350 km (220 miles) west of the scene of Tuesday's attack.

Another series is planned for the southern Sulu islands, a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf rebel group, but Washington's assertion that U.S. troops would fight the Muslim guerrillas directly unleashed a storm of controversy in the Philippines.

The Philippine constitution bans foreign troops from going into combat. 

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