The latest surveys, for all their temporary comfort, will count for nothing if Vice President Sara Duterte is booted out via impeachment and the Supreme Court, in an exercise of scruple, allows Congress to do its job.

The House justice committee has just declared that there is sufficient grounds to move forward with the impeachment proceedings. 

Sara’s verified answer barely even pretended to grapple with the allegations. Instead, she attacked the integrity of the process and accused the House of double standards for dismissing complaints against President Marcos Jr., implicated in a public works kickback scheme. 

The complainants, rightly, called it a “non-answer” and waived their right to reply because nothing in her response contradicts the claims; as House committee vice chair Joel Chua put it, all allegations remain unrefuted. The charges are serious — constitutional violations, bribery, graft, corruption, betrayal of public trust. 

The Duterte dynasty, which Sara now personifies, is weaker than it has ever admitted. Noise, theatrics, and diversionary tactics are its hallmarks; strength is a mere illusion. The patriarch, detained in The Hague for crimes against humanity, and the likelihood that he will never see freedom again have stripped the family of its aura of invincibility.

Crossroads

Sara, the dynasty’s one and only hope against political extinction, now teeters on the brink as she faces the prospects of impeachment, removal, and a lifetime ban from public office. If convicted, she may not even run for kagawad in her own barangay. 

I don’t know if our legislators fully realize that we are at a crossroads, or if they grasp the weight of the responsibility before them. In their hands rests the country’s future: whether public discourse normalizes or collapses again into spectacle and bullying, whether reason prevails or another bully rises, depends entirely on them. Their actions will set the trajectory for all of us — for public debate, for politics, and for the very course of this nation. Everything.

While Sara, having announced her presidential bid, is by no means unbeatable, our legislators have the power to remove her from the 2028 equation right now. Doing so would help speed up what my pareng Caloy Conde calls as the process of dedutertefication, and clear the field for those who are genuinely capable, who have demonstrated intellect, experience, and the stamina to lead. (To those who disagree, I say: Show me, pray tell, a single instance in which Sara has displayed even the faintest glimmer of exceptional intelligence.)

It would, at the very least, improve the quality of candidates and raise the standards of our national debate. What we have endured since 2016 are major players who ought to have been no more than saling pusa — a petty, bullying, and bloated presence that has intimidated competent politicians into silence and reduced serious national discourse to obsequious nods and hollow posturing.

Political erosion

Yet appearances, as always, can be deceiving. 

The latest survey figures place Sara in what appears, at first glance, to be an enviable position. A majority of Filipinos, 55%, still say they approve of her performance. That’s slightly fewer, but that also means 45% of Filipinos either disapprove of her (27%) or are undecided (18%).

Politics, as anyone who has watched it long enough knows, is rarely a photograph. It is a motion picture. And what matters is not merely the frame but the direction of the movement.

In Sara’s case, the trajectory points unmistakably downward. Her approval rating has slipped from 56% to 55%, while, more revealingly, disapproval has climbed from 24% to 27% since December 2025. Trust, meanwhile, limps along at a steady 54%, but distrust has crept upward from 24% to 26%.

These numbers might appear modest in isolation. But taken together, they form the unmistakable outline of political erosion. Sara may have already reached the summit of her popularity. And from the summit there is, by definition, no further altitude to gain.

Losing steam before the race

What makes this development particularly interesting is that Sara’s numbers are declining even in the absence of a formidable opponent, two years before the presidential election. The political arena remains largely vacant. No fully formed challenger has emerged. No rival has yet concentrated the electorate’s doubts or frustrations into a coherent alternative. And yet Sara’s slide has begun. This is rather like watching a front-runner in a race begin to lose speed before anyone else has even approached the starting line. 

The implications for the coming 2028 presidential election are obvious enough. Campaigns do not occur in a vacuum. Once an opponent emerges — and emerge one surely will — the scrutiny intensifies, the contrasts sharpen, and the electorate begins the inevitable exercise of comparison. 

If Sara’s numbers are already drifting downward without the benefit of a rival, one must ask what might happen when a credible and intelligent adversary untainted by corruption scandals surfaces to give the public a choice.

Impeachment impact

The survey’s regional breakdown complicates matters. Duterte’s support in Mindanao is nearly unanimous; in the Visayas, she remains comfortably ahead. But in Luzon, the demographic center of gravity, approval slips to 31% while disapproval rises to 44%.

This echoes the coalition that carried Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, though history is no guarantee. Class divides add volatility: her base is lower-income voters, while the urban and professional classes grow wary.

Duterte dominates the political chessboard, yet prominence is not inevitability. She still leads, but momentum has shifted; her numbers are contracting before the campaign even begins. In politics, a front-runner who peaks too early rarely stays at the top. These figures may mark not the start of a march to victory, but the opening chapter of the descent.

And that does not even account for the prospect of a damning impeachment trial in the Senate, where every allegation, every evasive answer, and every contradiction will be exposed, scrutinized, and laid bare for the public to witness in excruciating detail.

The problem with being on top years before the election is…here’s only two directions left: hang out on the peak like Juan Tamad, or start tumbling down and hope you don’t break something on the way. Pastilan. – Rappler.com