MANILA – Seven-time world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao on Tuesday appealed for sobriety following the massacre in Maguindanao that has left 46 people dead.

Pacquiao, a presidential envoy for peace and understanding, urged the public to remain calm amid the outcry caused by the killings.

The People’s Champ participated in a prayer rally at the Plaza Heneral Santos in General Santos City, together with several local media men, local officials, militant groups, and representatives of the Department of Justice.

Pacquiao lit a candle for the eternal repose of the victims.

Death toll reaches 46

The death toll from the massacre in Maguindanao rose to 46 on Tuesday, as President Arroyo placed the area under an indefinite state of emergency.

Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina told reporters in Manila that 24 bodies were recovered on Tuesday, on top of 22 that were found on Monday.

Regional police commander Chief Superintendent Josefino Cataluna said police conducted a grisly search operation along an unpaved road in the isolated rural village of Saniag, where 17 bodies were pulled out from just one grave.

The scale of Monday's massacre, as well as the targeting of innocent people, has shocked and deeply angered the country.

Fourteen of the victims were women, and 12 of them were journalists with no apparent links to the clan war.

Military officials said the dead included Genalyn Tiamzon-Mangudadatu, who was on the way to file the certificate of candidacy (COC) of Ismael, her husband, who seeks to contest the governorship of Maguindanao against Datu Andal Ampatuan, the head of a powerful local family.

Ampatuan has been elected governor of Maguindanao three times previously, always unopposed, although he resigned from the post earlier this year, apparently to circumvent term limits on elected officials.

One of his sons is the governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), an area which covers six provinces, and the family is politically allied with Arroyo.

None of the Ampatuans has made any comment to local or foreign media. With reports from Chat Ansagay and Jay Dayupay, ABS-CBN Socksargen