MANILA, Philippines -- A top Malacañang security official on Sunday said authorities had identified the group behind the string of bomb-related incidents in Metro Manila and were now working to arrest the perpetrators.

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales cleared both the political opposition and the New People’s Army, saying they had nothing to do with the behind staging the bombings.

“We have identified the group,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net) in a phone interview. “It’s very difficult to classify it because it does not belong to the mainstream communist movement or the political opposition.”

Gonzales described the suspects as “anarchists” whose operations were supposedly concentrated in Central Luzon and Metro Manila.

“This is a small and negligible group,” he said. “We don’t take it seriously, except that it’s using materials that are lethal.”

Gonzales said this was the group behind the blast that rocked the compound of the Office of the Ombudsman.

He said it had also planted the explosives found at the Department of Agriculture and the vicinity of One Burgundy Plaza condominium along Katipunan Avenue.

Gonzales said he had been informed about the group three days ago. He said its primary intention was supposedly to create a “scenario” leading to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address later this month.

“They want to get into the picture,” he said.

Gonzales said the Metro Manila incidents had nothing to do with Sunday’s bombing near the Immaculate Concepcion Cathedral in Cotobato City, which killed at least five people and wounded more than 30 others.

“They should not be connected,” he said. “The situation in Mindanao is different from the situation in Metro Manila.”

Critics of the administration had earlier raised the possibility that the bombings in Metro Manila could have been the handiwork of the government in preparation for a declaration of a state of emergency or martial law.

Malacañang vehemently denied cooking up such a scenario, saying forces opposed to Arroyo were only trying to create trouble ahead of the SONA.