Philippine police relieved all the officers in a city precinct on Wednesday after a television station aired footage purportedly showing police torturing a naked detainee.

The detained man is believed to be a suspected thief caught in Manila's Tondo slum district, according to ABS-CBN TV, which said it obtained the mobile phone footage from an unidentified informer.

The man's fate and when the video was taken were unclear. The footage shows him screaming on the floor in a foetal position with his genitals bound and a man pulling the rope and whipping him.