The 2028 race is far from settled; the margins say so

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

Sara Duterte is still ahead. That much is obvious from WR Numero’s March 2026 Philippine Public Opinion Monitor, where she holds 36 percent – a 3-point bump from November 2025. But fixating on the frontrunner misses what’s actually happening underneath.

Raffy Tulfo gained 5 points in the same window. Leni Robredo picked up 3. Duterte’s own increase? Also 3. She is growing, sure, but from a much higher base and at the same pace as a rival who was polling at single digits not that long ago. If you are Duterte’s camp, you want separation, but what the numbers are giving you instead is compression.

And here’s the thing nobody (or Duterte fanatic) wants to say out loud: her 36 percent today is roughly the same share she had in WR Numero’s very first survey back in December 2023, when she polled at almost 36 percent. Two years and a political earthquake later – an impeachment by the House in February 2025, a Supreme Court reversal in July, a second round of impeachment complaints initiated this February, her father’s arrest and transfer to ICC custody – and she’s basically where she started.

Political analyst Julio Teehankee described this broader dynamic as a “stalemate” between factions, with the Duterte side holding a slight advantage. Far from dominance this looks like a ceiling dressed up as a lead.

WR Numero’s release noted that this same survey wave asked respondents about the impeachment proceedings and the elder Duterte’s detention and trial at The Hague. Those results were not included in the press statement. That omission stings. Those issue numbers are exactly what would tell us whether her 36 percent is hardened conviction or soft loyalty waiting to be tested.

Now look at the vice presidential side, where the real chaos lives. More than a quarter of respondents – 26.8 percent – are undecided. That’s not a footnote. That’s the largest single bloc in the race, bigger than the 12 percent apiece held by Bong Go, Grace Poe, and Robin Padilla, who are locked in a statistical dead heat at the top.

Think about what that means: the so-called leaders of the VP race are each drawing roughly one voter for every two who haven’t made up their mind. The field is so flat that Rodante Marcoleta, appearing in the survey for the first time, immediately debuted at 8.4 percent – within striking distance of the top three. When a new entrant can vault past established names on first contact, the race is not being shaped by platforms or record. That is purely name recall, and not much else.

Meanwhile, Go cratered by 7 points from his November solo lead, while Poe and Padilla climbed by 4 and 3 points respectively. That’s not consolidation. That’s musical chairs.

The bigger question is where the 26.8 percent undecided eventually land – and the survey doesn’t help here. No regional breakdown, no demographic split, nothing to explain whether it’s weak candidate differentiation, the absence of declared alliances, or voters waiting for someone who hasn’t shown up yet. Wider subnational margins of error – ±7 points for NCR, ±6 each for the Visayas and Mindanao – only sharpen the blind spot.

Two years out, the 2028 race is being treated like it is settled but it is not. The frontrunner’s lead has not grown in real terms since 2023, her challengers are gaining faster, and the vice presidential contest is a vacuum wrapped in indecision. The numbers worth watching are not at the top of the chart. They’re in the margins – and in the data the survey has yet to and should release.