MANILA, June 20 (Reuters) - The Philippine police admitted on Friday a ransom of at least 5 million pesos ($112,700) was paid to free a television news crew kidnapped in the Muslim south and they accused a local mayor of pocketing most of it.

Alvarez Isnaji, a mayor on the remote southern island of Jolo, had been one of the negotiators in talks to release Ces Drilon, a well-known journalist, and her crew.

Police said the kidnappers had links to the Abu Sayyaf, a notorious Islamic militant group, but said they were not core members of that organisation as was previously suspected.

"There was an initial payment of 5 million pesos ($112,700), but only 2 million pesos went to the kidnappers and the rest was kept by the mayor," said Avelino Razon, the national police chief. He said Drilon's family paid the money.

On Thursday, police filed criminal charges against Isnaji and his son for the kidnapping. They had previously insisted that no ransom was paid.

Drilon's captors, who threatened to decapitate them, had demanded 15 million pesos to release them. Some of the kidnappers were only teenagers.

The Abu Sayyaf has around 350 members and links to other Muslim groups on Jolo via family ties. It has made a successful business out of kidnap-for-ransom.

In 2000, the group held about 20 people, most of them Western tourists and Malaysian resort workers from nearby Sipadan island, for about three months. They freed them only after more than $10 million was paid for their release.

A year later, three Americans and more than a dozen Filipino tourists and resort workers were taken from the western island of Palawan. Two of the Americans were killed, including one who was beheaded, while most of the rest were freed for ransom.

The Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for the worst militant attack in the Philippines, the bombing of a ferry near Manila Bay in 2004 that killed more than 100 people. (Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Roger Crabb)

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