MANILA: Five years after 58 people were killed in the Philippines’ worst political massacre, anger among victims’ relatives is building, with no one yet convicted and the alleged masterminds still enjoying power.

Nine leaders of a clan accused of orchestrating the slaughter are among dozens on trial, but there are deep concerns the proceedings could take many more years and that witnesses are being killed or intimidated.

“Sometimes we feel hopeless, that this is all going nowhere,” Noemi Parcon, whose husband was among 32 journalists killed in the massacre, told AFP as she attended the trial in Manila this week.

“We’d be happy even if only the principals are convicted.”

The leaders of the Ampatuan family, who ruled the impoverished southern province of Maguindanao, are accused of organizing the killings on Nov. 23, 2009, in a bid to quash an election challenge from a rival clan.

Thirty-two media workers were among those killed, making the attack one of the deadliest ever recorded globally against journalists.

Andal Ampatuan Snr had ruled Maguindanao as governor for about a decade under the patronage of then-president Gloria Arroyo, who had funded a private army for the clan as a buffer against Muslim separatists.

Ampatuan’s son and namesake is accused of leading the militia in stopping a convoy that was carrying his political foe’s wife, relatives, lawyers and the journalists, then gunning them down on a grassy hill.

The victims’ bodies were found almost immediately afterwards in roadside pits that were dug using a government-owned excavator.