Vice President Sara Duterte’s announcement of her presidential bid is a power move meant to change the dynamics of the 2028 elections. 

It’s a rare smart play from her camp, one that glosses over some weaknesses. The following developments could have triggered the early announcement:

• It seeks to ride on her relatively high satisfaction ratings, interpreted by her camp as a sign of recovery even if a close reading would reveal that her support base has shrunk and now confined to Mindanao and parts of the Visayas. 
• The Vice President needs to revive the fragmented Duterte base and win over her father’s loyalists who have been reluctant to support her largely due to her lackluster performance, erratic behavior, and corruption issues. Of course, there are certain political personalities who are not welcome in her circle, but politics is addition and makes for good optics. 
• The second impeachment complaint against her is in limbo; reelectionists are hedging, fearful that backing her impeachment could cost them votes from the Duterte base. With loyalties frayed by the corruption controversy personally initiated by the President against his own allies in Congress, there is no incentive to support her impeachment or conviction. This works to Duterte’s advantage. A failed impeachment will be paraded as a moral victory, when it is just plain politics-as-usual. 

The ultimate prize is when incumbents start jumping ship, signaling an early realignment of political parties and loyalties.

Highly-placed sources say that the Vice President has been actively courting several former advisers and Cabinet officials of her father as a way to win over the business community and build a bridge to his loyal base. And one can expect the Vice President to milk next week’s confirmation hearings at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for all the nostalgia and emotional resonance with the Duterte faithful.

What’s next for the opposition?

With the Vice President now in play, there is greater pressure or incentive, depending on how one looks at it, for the opposition to close ranks. That is easier said than done.

After her election loss in 2022, former vice president Leni Robredo faded into the background, forsaking national politics and running for Naga City mayor instead, a position she won handily in 2025. Despite its impressive electoral gains in the midterms, the opposition is still without a North Star, the heir to Robredo and all the hope she embodies. Despite her absence from the national stage, Robredo remains, in the eyes of her supporters, the one who will finally deliver us from perdition.

That a movement has formed, at least online, behind Robredo for 2028 poses a problem for the organized pink forces. In Robredo’s absence, the organized pinks appear to have broken into two camps, those supporting Senator Risa Hontiveros and the backers of Senator Bam Aquino.

The online animosity directed at Hontiveros, Aquino, and even Robredo is not surprising behavior. It’s what the pinks seem to do best: sabotage their own campaigns. 

I would not begrudge Aquino for fanboying over the Sex Bomb Girls or Hontiveros for shaking her hips in designer threads with Zumba ladies. All politics today is, after all, performative.

But the partisan online posts, some presented slyly as unbiased observations, need to be tempered. Campaigns are not democratic undertakings. They demand alignment, conformity, and strict discipline. Pink influencers celebrate the freedom to criticize their own leaders as a virtue that sets them apart from the uncritical mob (The bashing received by Aquino over his attempt to straddle the middle course on the issue of ICC jurisdiction shows the consequences of straying from the party line). Yet, it is the so-called uncritical mob that has elected a president. 

For unaligned observers, the organized pinks can be as rigid and intolerant as the DDS and the organized Left, more concerned with radiating virtue than building coalitions or getting their hands dirty in the rough and tumble reality of politics. 

Is there a path to victory against Sara? 

The political situation is favorable. The Vice President has not fully addressed the corruption allegations involving confidential funds. She cannot dismiss as a joke her midnight rant and her admission of hiring a contract killer against the President and members of his family. These are defining issues. Yet the organized pinks, the ones who are in a best position to take on Duterte, are busy writing negatory essays and posting memes against their potential candidates. 

In an election where the voters demand change, the Vice President is handicapped by her track record, personality, and surname. 

But before the pinks can claim to being the agents of change, they must learn to understand the resentment of the poor and the working class that sustains populists like the Dutertes. They must align their tactics and messaging accordingly. They must learn how to break through or maneuver out of the tribal instincts that give Duterte a solid foothold in Visayan-speaking provinces (With no Marcos or Romualdez on the ballot, one can expect the Vice President to reclaim Leyte and Samar). 

And the pinks should be willing to enter into a coalition with other parties and rally behind one candidate even if that candidate does not come from their ranks. It must understand that elections are all about winning votes. In short, the pinks must learn humility.

But first, they should stop fighting among themselves. – 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.