Youth groups condemn red-tagging at CPU

By Juliane Judilla

Various youth organizations held a press conference on Thursday, March 5, condemning a recent red-tagging incident that they said occurred at Central Philippine University in Iloilo City on Feb. 28.

The incident allegedly took place during a “peace awareness” forum conducted as part of the orientation for the university’s National Service Training Program.

During the event, speaker Zarmeen Cartagena allegedly labeled several progressive youth organizations — including the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, National Union of Students of the Philippines, League of Filipino Students, Anakbayan, Student Christian Movement of the Philippines and Kabataan Party-list — as front organizations of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front.

Representatives of the organizations rejected the allegations and denounced the incident as a form of red-tagging.

“Red-tagging is not a harmless incident,” said JM Baldove of CEGP Panay.

“Publicly branding individuals and groups as front organizations linked to insurgent groups carries serious and often undocumented risks. It has been associated with harassment, surveillance, intimidation, threats, and reputational damage,” he added.

Baldove also cited the Supreme Court ruling in Deduro v. Vinoya, which held that red-tagging, vilification, labeling and guilt by association threaten a person’s right to life, liberty or security and may justify protection under the writ of amparo.

During the press conference, a student identified only as Alek of the OIKOS Ecological Movement Panay and a CPU student shared her personal experience of alleged harassment.

According to Alek, she and her sister were repeatedly visited by personnel from the Philippine Army’s 3rd Civil-Military Operations Regiment in November 2025.

She said the soldiers approached their parents in an attempt to convince them to “clear” their daughters’ names, claiming the two were supposedly linked to revolutionary organizations.

“Until now, we still fear for our safety,” Alek said.

She added that the recent incident at CPU alarmed her family because a similar program had previously been conducted in their barangay shortly before soldiers visited their home.

Alek said their experience was not an isolated case.

She pointed to the case of the Dayata sisters — both alumni and student leaders of the University of the Philippines Visayas and active youth organizers — who reportedly faced a similar pattern of red-tagging and house visits in June 2025.

Arlie Bosque of Kabataan Party-list Panay said such incidents were not limited to CPU but had also occurred in other universities and communities across the region.

He cited similar cases reported at West Visayas State University and Northern Iloilo State University.

Bosque emphasized that joining youth and community organizations should not be treated as a crime.

“It is not a crime to join people’s organizations, youth organizations—especially now, when the conditions of our society call on us to stand up, organize, and unite to act against the evils in our society. Particularly in pushing for change in the rotten system—this is what drives the youth to join organizations,” Bosque said.

Matt Gonzaga of NUSP Panay also said universities should remain safe spaces where students can learn, promote civic participation and freely engage in legitimate youth organizations without fear of being red-tagged.

Gonzaga called on the CPU administration to formally address the incident and ensure that similar situations do not happen again in what he described as a Christian and values-centered institution.

Meanwhile, Samantha Herbolario of Anakbayan Panay criticized red-tagging and terrorist labeling as a “fascist” approach to achieving peace.

She argued that as long as issues such as landlessness, unemployment and the continued monopolization of public services remain unresolved, resistance movements will persist.

Herbolario also clarified that while Anakbayan advocates social reforms, it is an open and legal organization and that the accusations against it are unfounded.

Youth groups also said Cartagena reportedly acknowledged that the claims she presented during the forum were based on materials and statements from the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict and the national government.

The groups said this further reinforced their call to abolish the agency, arguing that despite receiving billions of pesos in public funds, the NTF-ELCAC has become notorious for endangering the lives of students and community members through what they described as baseless red-tagging campaigns.

The NTF-ELCAC was created under Executive Order No. 70 in December 2018 to institutionalize the government’s “whole-of-nation approach” in addressing local communist armed conflict.