I don’t know if Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo has a heroic streak in her but she should run for president again, this time in 2028, against incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte. Sara is the only one who has openly declared her intention to run for president and she needs a viable opponent. Her confidence to declare her intention this early is apparently rooted in the fact that the so-called Diehard Duterte Supporters or DDS are still a force to reckon with in the coming elections.
But the consensus now is that this country needs saving again like it did in the ‘80s when it was still under a dictatorship. After Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino was killed in 1983, his wife Corazon or Cory emerged to lead the opposition. Cory became the heroic symbol of the 1986 Edsa People Power uprising that toppled the dictatorship of the father of incumbent President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. Cory was elected the first president after the uprising.
Of course, the Dutertes are not totally like the original Macoy, who installed a dictatorship after taking power in 1965. But the fear is that Sara, if she wins the presidency in 2028, will proceed to reinstall the kind of governance that her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, installed in the past. “Digong” is currently imprisoned in The Hague in the Netherlands for “crimes against humanity.” Thus, there is now an effort to ensure that Sara won’t become president in 2028.
Sara wisely teamed up with Bongbong Marcos in 2022 but the so-called Uniteam has split with Sara and the DDS regularly taking potshots at BBM. Marcos, who had the fanatical support of the so-called Marcos loyalists and the DDS defeated Robredo and the liberal forces in 2022. Robredo then ran for mayor of Naga in 2025 and won. That win has put her in a dilemma: should she continue what she started in Naga or should she heed the call of the forces that see her as the only viable candidate against Sara?
Robredo is apparently reminded of her 2022 loss. But what the 2022 presidential election only showed is that the liberal forces are, on their own, not capable yet of defeating the unified forces of the Right in a legal political exercise. The Right at this time, though, is no longer united while the liberals have remained a political force despite their defeat in 2022. It is now up to the liberal forces to further strengthen themselves via alliances or the formation of coalition to win the presidency in 2028.
There is even now a push for a Robredo-Marcos unified front, something that some purists never envisioned, against the DDS. As they say, everything can happen in Philippine politics where political power is always the goal. If the intention is to weaken the Right and allow the liberals to get back to power, then such a united front is not farfetched. Besides, BBM has shown that he is more of a liberal than a dictator as president. A Robredo presidency is therefore better than a Sara Duterte presidency once Marcos steps down in 2028. A push from the center to the left of center is better than a push to the right.