The Kabataan Party-list chapter in Eastern Visayas exposed state agents’ successive cases of harassment, profiling, and Red-tagging against youth activists. The state even targeted the said activists’ families over the past two months.

In April alone military agents went to the homes of members of Tindog Kabataan, a youth organization in Northern Samar, and of The Pillar, the campus paper of the University of Eastern Philippines in the same province, the group said. The agents threatened the activists, saying they are on the military’s surveillance list.

The provincial government of Northern Samar granted “accreditation” to Tindog Kabataan as a socio-civic organization in September 2025. First formed as Northern Samar Youth for Leni, the group is now active in charity and volunteer work.

In Tacloban City, individuals who identified themselves as from the Office of the President harassed several Kabataan Party-list members in March. They forced the youths to give them information. They also repeatedly pressured one member of the group to meet with notorious military agent Jason Rafales.

Soldiers in plainclothes also went to the house of a Kabataan Party-list member. This terrorized and alarmed the entire family.

Students also faced harassment and Red-tagging, some of them Kabataan Party-list members, who joined the commemoration of the EDSA uprising in Baybay City. Staff and cadets of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps of Visayas State University were among those who spread malicious accusations.

According to Kabataan Party-list Eastern Visayas, this harassment of their members is a systematic attack on youth activists in the region. It reflects intensifying militarization of democratic spaces. Led by the National Task Force-Elcac, the state normalizes the militarization of campuses and schools through forums, activities, and “partnerships” that attack youth organizations to push its counterinsurgency agenda.

The group called on universities and schools to end all cooperation with fascist institutions. They said administrations must defend students from harassment, Red-tagging, and other forms of attack by state forces, and uphold academic freedom and democratic rights.

“It is our right and duty as patriotic students and youth to criticize and protest the corrupt and oppressive Marcos Jr regime amid the economic crisis and US imperialist wars,” the group asserted.

Despite the attacks, Kabataan Party-list Eastern Visayas said it will persist in the struggle to hold the administration accountable for its failed response to the crisis, plunder of public funds, and sale of national sovereignty. “We must intensify our collective resistance amid escalating attacks,” they called.