The 2028 buzz and points missed

By now, the guessing game around the 2028 elections is starting to look less like democratic conversation and more like a provincial version of a derby, with names tossed around, alliances read like omens, and every photo or quote treated as a clue for a race that is still two years away.

That is what makes the recent talk around Vice Gov. Lee Ann Debuque, Rep. Lorenz Defensor, former Mayor Jed Mabilog, and Councilor Miguel Treñas worth pausing over, because the problem is not ordinary political curiosity, but how quickly attention drifts from performance in office to the choreography of succession.

When Uswag Ilonggo partylist Rep. Jojo Ang says Debuque and Defensor will “complement each other” and that there is “no need for rivalry,” the line sounds pleasant enough, but in Philippine politics unity can sometimes mean something less noble, a quiet effort to settle questions of power within a familiar circle before voters even get to weigh real choices.

That is not an abstract worry in this country, where the Constitution itself says the state must guarantee equal access to public service and prohibit political dynasties as defined by law, yet nearly four decades later Congress still has not fully delivered on that promise.

The numbers are blunt enough to spoil any romantic talk about mere public affection for familiar names, because the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism found that 71 of the country’s 82 governors, or 87 percent, belong to political dynasties, while over 80 percent of district House seats are occupied by dynasty members.

So when Iloilo hears that one sibling may move here, another relative may move there, and allies need not compete because they can simply “complement” each other, people are not wrong to ask whether they are witnessing healthy coalition-building or the softer language of elite succession.

The more urgent point, though, is that all this noise arrives while people are dealing with things that are neither speculative nor theatrical, including higher fuel costs, inflation, and a labor market that is still leaving millions of Filipinos without work.

The Philippine Statistics Authority reported inflation at 2.4 percent in February 2026, and it also said the number of unemployed Filipinos in January 2026 rose to 2.96 million, which helps explain why voters are in no mood for political crystal-ball reading dressed up as analysis.

At the same time, the energy squeeze is real, with the Department of Energy announcing staggered fuel price adjustments in March and Reuters reporting that the House of Representatives has even moved to give the president power to suspend fuel taxes because of the oil shock linked to the conflict involving Iran.

That, to be fair, is the one solid note in Mabilog’s response, because he pointed at the needs of senior citizens, persons with disabilities, vendors, and transport drivers, and those are precisely the concerns that should dominate local politics right now instead of surname speculation.

Iloilo does not need less political competition in 2028, and it does not need more polite ambiguity in 2026.

It needs a clearer public standard now: anyone who wants to be taken seriously for higher office should spend the next two years talking less about alignment, surveys, and floating names, and more about transport costs, taxation pressures, jobs, health care, and whether public office is still being treated as a family relay.

Because governance is not a cockpit, and voters should not be asked to watch 2028 like they are placing bets while today’s burdens keep getting heavier.