MANILA, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- Twenty people were killed while 27 others injured on Monday when a passenger jeepney collided with a bus in a northern Philippine province, police said.

Chief Inspector Roy Villanueva, police chief of the town of Agoo in La Union province in Luzon, said the collision happened at about 3:30 a.m. in San Jose village in the town of Agoo, some 200 km north of Manila.

It was reported that the jeepney, packed with 29 passengers, were headed south to a famous church in Manaoag to a dawn Christmas mass. It collided with a north-bound bus headon when it was about to overtake another vehicle.

Twenty of the 29 jeepney passengers were killed, and nine were injured in the collision. Eighteen bus passengers, who were headed north to Laoag City in Ilocos Norte also suffered minor injuries, the police said.

The jeepney are elongated, flatbed passenger vehicles that have been plying the Philippine streets and roads for more than five decades. It remains the main transport for millions of Filipinos across the archipelago.