In the more than two weeks since an explosion rocked Manila's largest shopping center, the Glorietta Mall, speculation has been rife about who or what was responsible for the blast. The local press blames terrorist groups, while foreign inspectors say it might have been an accidental gas explosion. But the mere possibility that it was a deliberate attack sheds an unwelcome light on the government's ineffectual battle against terrorism. Confronted with a complex array of active threats, Manila is eschewing a coordinated game plan in favor of something resembling a county fair's whack-a-mole game -- confronting one threat at a time, while another pops up, and grows.

The greatest unrest is centered in the southern provinces, home to the bulk of the Philippines' Muslim population, and four different terrorist groups. Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah has maintained training camps there since the mid-1990s, and while its goal of establishing a regional caliphate has dimmed, the camps do provide JI a rear area to regroup from its activities elsewhere in the region. Abu Sayyaf, another terror organization with some international links, has been sporadically active in these provinces since 1991 with an eye to ostensibly establishing an independent Islamic state.

Then there are the homegrown Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an Islamist group fighting for an independent homeland, and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a secular group whose members are increasingly disillusioned with the peace agreement they signed with the government nearly 11 years ago. Both hope to achieve an independent homeland, but have been unable to get more than offers of autonomy.

Fighting all of these groups at the same time is devilishly hard, not least because they also fight amongst themselves, making conflicting demands of the government. For example, the MILF and MNLF aren't on speaking terms owing to a dispute over the legitimacy of a political settlement reached between the Philippine government and MNLF in 1996. The MNLF leadership considers the group the only true representatives of the Bangsamoro people of the region and views the 1996 agreement between it and Manila as binding. MILF, which currently has more men under arms, considers MNLF a bunch of corrupted, un-Islamic sell-outs. Meantime, the secular MNLF still claims the Malaysian state of Sabah, and claim the Islamic MILF "sold out" for the group's willingness to tolerate Malay sovereignty over the state. Both cooperate to a varying degree with the Abu Sayyaf.

Over her seven-year term, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has focused most of her attention on offensives against Abu Sayyaf, which have been marginally successful. With considerable U.S. military assistance, training and operational intelligence, the Philippine military was able to concentrate their meager resources in Basilan and Jolo. Few expected the Philippine military to sustain the offensive against Abu Sayyaf over the past 16 months, but it has. Since August 2006, six known leaders with bounties on their heads have been killed, including Ismin Sahiron, Abu Solaiman and the group's nominal leader, Khadaffy Janjalani.

A number of mid-level Jemaah Islamiyah operatives have been arrested, too. Even though two of the 2002 Bali bombers are still at large and working with Abu Sayyaf, they are not adding real value to the terrorist group, as they are constantly on the run. The JI training facilities in central Mindanao are clearly smaller than they were even a few years ago. Overall, the southern Philippines today is a much less hospitable operating environment for terrorists than in the past.

But while the international terror threat may have abated for now, the Philippines' homegrown insurgent groups, the MNLF and the MILF, have become frustrated with their respective peace processes, and 2006-07 saw an alarming number of cease-fire violations.

Blame goes to a lack of attention from President Arroyo's administration and deep divisions within her government between hardliners in the armed forces and the congress who oppose further autonomy concessions, and advocates of peace within the cabinet. Earlier this year, President Arroyo's chief negotiator, Silvester Affable, quit in frustration.

To see what this means in practice, take first MILF, which has been fighting for an independent Islamic state since 1978 and now controls swaths of central Mindanao. While the government first entered into talks with MILF in 1997, progress has come in fits and starts. Talks broke down in September 2006, over a dispute of what constitutes MILF's "ancestral domain."

In 1995-96, MILF apparently abandoned its demand for an independent homeland and accepted an autonomy agreement in the closed-door negotiations. But the two sides can't agree on what that territory, called the "Bangsamoro Juridical Entity," will entail. MILF claims some 1,200 villages, plus the five provinces and two cities "ceded" in the 1996 agreement the government reached with MNLF. The government offer encompasses roughly half of that area. Neither have they agreed on how to govern the BJE: Manila proposes "enhanced autonomy," while MILF wants full autonomy.

As the peace talks have stalled, the ceasefire has unraveled. The number of skirmishes increased 18% this year compared to the same period last year, prompting the Malaysian peace monitors to threaten to pull out.

Meanwhile MNLF has tried in vain to get Manila to re-engage in talks to address the sections of its own accord that have not been implemented. In January, the Philippine government refused, citing the ongoing discussions with MILF. Little wonder that in March and April, two separate MNLF units took up arms and attacked Philippine military forces (including a camp where U.S. Special forces are based) in Jolo and Zamboanga. These units have now joined Abu Sayyaf, nearly quadrupling their ranks to roughly 300-400.

The last point aptly illustrates the perils of Manila's multipronged approach to its multipronged terror threat. The government is trying to distinguish between different terrorist groups, negotiating with some and taking military action against others. But, for example, it becomes harder and harder to argue that MNLF poses a political problem and Abu Sayyaf a policing problem when the two groups are willing to cooperate with each other. On the other side of the same coin, it's difficult if not impossible to negotiate with MILF and MNLF for the same patch of land when the two won't talk to each other.

Rather than trying to tackle each problem group individually, President Arroyo must come up with a comprehensive plan for peace in Mindanao for all the Moro groups, not the whack-a-mole policies in place today. The government must create a peace process that reconciles the 1996 MNLF agreement and the ongoing BJE framework, and create a power-sharing structure, perhaps at the federal level, for the contending Moro groups. All branches of the Philippine government must be committed to the full implementation of agreements that they sign and not water down the autonomy agreements. Policing must continue, but the government must be careful not to let operations against one group spill over, in order not to put pressure on the fragile cease-fires.

The Philippines' terror situation remains in flux, and the groups, while not having formal ties, often cooperate with one another. Sadly, there are spoilers on all sides. This island nation is likely to remain the soft underbelly for regional security for some time to come.

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