Philippines massacre toll reaches 46

By Eric de Castro

AMPATUAN, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippines placed two southern provinces and a city under emergency rule on Tuesday after gunmen killed 46 people in a brutal election-related massacre that has shocked the country.

Many of the victims in the killings in Maguindanao province were women from the powerful Mangudadatu clan. About a dozen journalists were also among the dead.

"There is an urgent need to prevent and suppress the occurrence of several other incidents of lawless violence," Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said while announcing the emergency.

The adjoining provinces of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat and nearby Cotabato City will be under an indefinite state of emergency, which gives the military and police wide powers of arrest and detention.

The orders were issued as troops, using shovels and their bare hands, dug up hastily covered graves on a grassy hillside in Maguindanao to recover the victims of Monday's massacre. Police spokesman Leonardo Espina said 46 bodies had been found.

A Reuters photographer at the scene saw many of the bodies with bullet and machete wounds. Some of the dead men had their hands tied behind their backs and one of the women was pregnant.

"This atrocity leaves a deep wound in our national psyche," said Ralph Recto, a former senator. "It is as if each one of us has been stabbed."

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered extra troops to the region and sacked the Maguindanao provincial police chief.