MANILA: Twenty-seven journalists were among 57 people killed in a massacre in the southern Philippines blamed on an ally of President Gloria Arroyo, the military said yesterday.

The dead also included up to 15 motorists who, like the reporters, had no known quarrels with the suspects, said Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Ponce, military spokesman for the southwestern Philippines. The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Monday’s election-related massacre in Maguindanao province was the deadliest attack on the media since at least 1992, when it began keeping records.

The alleged mastermind of the killings, Arroyo ally and local politician Andal Ampatuan Jnr., surrendered yesterday but insisted he was innocent.

Investigators believe about 100 of his armed bodyguards allegedly abducted a convoy of aides and relatives of a rival politician, Esmael Mangudadatu, plus a group of journalists.

The victims were in a six-vehicle convoy on their way to nominate Mangudadatu as the opposition candidate for provincial governor in next year’s national elections.