The results of the latest presidential preference surveys bear the qualifier “hypothetical,” a word that has now become standard fare in pollster disclaimers. It’s a reminder to partisans not to get too excited or too depressed. Partisans ignore it anyway.

Impeached Vice President Sara Duterte is leading in these hypothetical match-ups, with voter support hardening in Mindanao, the family’s bailiwick (Pulse Asia pegged it at 96% in a head-to-head with Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo) and holding firm in Central Visayas. Sleepless nights for sure at the Palace and in the war rooms of the liberal pinks and the aimless Left, since a Sara presidency would mean payback for all who wronged her and her family, legal niceties be damned.

Her conviction by the Senate impeachment court thus becomes more urgent. The prosecution has dropped three of four articles, and the case now rests on a single charge of unexplained wealth. The defense takes the floor on November 9.

Political observers say a verdict is likely before the Christmas holidays, even as senator-judges insist they will not be pressured into prematurely revealing their votes or abandoning their impartiality, real or feigned. Every political player with a stake in 2028 knows that allowing the proceedings to spill into the first quarter of 2027 would be a dangerous gamble.

It would allow the Sara campaign to reframe the trial as election-related, play the underdog card, and possibly convert a segment of the undecided. Her spokesperson has already called the withdrawal of the three articles an admission that the charges never had basis, and that is how her camp wants the trial remembered.

Coalition: A must

Efforts to consolidate the anti-Duterte ranks (the pinks, the left, the Marcos base) behind a single candidate in a winner-take-all brawl against the Vice President need to proceed with greater purpose and energy. Such a coalition needs to agree that the only objective is to defeat her and prevent a Duterte restoration, purity checks sidelined in favor of winnability. Old grudges between Liberals and the Marcos coalition, the “pinklawan” and the Left, will have to be shelved, at least until the canvassing is done.

The coalition must also anticipate shifts in the political environment. Right now, opposition groups are planning for the “Us versus Sara” scenario. But what if the Vice President is found guilty, removed, and disqualified from public office, including the presidency? What then? 

The Duterte camp will surely file a petition before the Supreme Court, and the legal limbo could stretch into September 2027, when the filing of certificates of candidacy (CoC) opens. The Commission on Elections had said it will accept her CoC regardless. The uncertainty allows the Duterte camp to keep its options open while the opposition coalition could only wait.

The worst case in a presidential election without Sara Duterte on the ballot is for the incipient coalition to fragment, with each group or party retreating into its purity cocoon and fielding its own candidate. The resulting free-for-all could still favor a Duterte candidate. Not necessarily a member of the family, but someone perceived or packaged as heir and protector of the Duterte legacy, one who is embraced, like the former president, as champion of the poor and dispossessed, the same voters dismissed by elitists as society’s dregs and “bobotante.” 

If we read surveys as quarterly referendums on the incumbent, then voters are in a foul mood. Angry and betrayed by a President who promised them liberation from poverty but will leave, after six years in the Palace, with a legacy of corruption, greed, and incompetence. The 2028 presidential election goes to the candidate who is seen as the incumbent’s opposite. 

The Vice President’s conviction looms as increasingly likely. Yet it may lead to an unintended consequence, one that is worse than our current predicament. Sara may be out, but not Dutertismo. – Rappler.com

Joey Salgado is a former journalist, and a government and political communications practitioner. He served as spokesperson for former vice president Jejomar Binay.