When she declared her presidential bid in February instead of facing the impeachment cases filed against her, Sara Duterte was clinging to the hope that her popularity in the early polls will bail her out of trouble. She was on the crest of a double-digit lead, with support stretching from Mindanao to the masa. And the opposition was without a clear figure head.
Suddenly now, that talking point is no longer available. The Q1 2026 surveys from OCTA Research and Pulse Asia have suddenly shifted to a different story. These are a new set of numbers that will unsettle the Duterte camp far more than they will publicly admit.
In OCTA’s multi-candidate field, Sara dropped from 38% to 33%. Leni Robredo, who has repeatedly said she is not running, surged from 8% to 21%, a 13-point jump in a single quarter and the largest gain among all potential candidates. In a head-to-head matchup, OCTA puts the gap at 11 points: 46% to 35%. A year ago, that same gap ranged from 20 to 30 points. In a Pulse Asia head-to-head, Sara is statistically tied with Senator Raffy Tulfo, who has also not declared, at 46% each. Outside Mindanao, Tulfo leads. In the rest of Luzon, he leads 72 to 19.
Take a look at Robredo’s numbers for a moment. She has repeatedly said she is not running. Yet a significant slice of the electorate is gravitating toward her anyway. What we are seeing here is a survey capture not yet of Robredo as a candidate. They are capturing voter dissatisfaction with Sara, the early candidate. When an electorate moves toward a candidate who is not there, it is telling you something about the candidate who went ahead and declared. Candidate announcements typically generate a polling bounce. Sara got none. Her numbers did not rise but fell instead.
Tulfo’s showing carries a footnote significant to Palawan. He began his career as a disc jockey here at a local radio station and studied at Holy Trinity College before making his name in Manila. He is not a stranger to this province and should he ultimately declare, Palaweños may find him a more compelling alternative but that is, for now, purely hypothetical.
When Sara Duterte announced her candidacy, it was never about electoral politics. It was a warning shot aimed at the House of Representatives, a signal to every politician that siding with the impeachment meant betting against the next president. This message, amplified by the DDS and the Duterte troll infrastructure on Facebook and across social media, was simple – she is inevitable, and you will be on the wrong side of history if you move against her.
The problem for Duterte now is that the survey numbers are undermining the very intimidation the announcement was designed to project. The Q1 data is instead suggesting the opposite.
The troll machine has not let up. In the days before the House Committee on Justice voted on its final impeachment report on Monday, coordinated disinformation flooded social media with false claims that committee members were changing their stances and would refuse to sign the report. It was a last-ditch attempt at mind conditioning, trying to manufacture the appearance of a collapsing impeachment in order to discourage further momentum. They were wrong. All 55 members of the committee voted without a single dissent – 55 out of 55. A week earlier, the same committee had voted 53 to 0 to find probable cause.
This pattern tells you that the Duterte political operation is no longer confident that reality is on their side. When the machinery shifts from persuasion to fabrication, it is because the facts have become inconvenient.
The impeachment proceedings are now part of the daily news cycle. Central to the articles of impeachment are allegations of misuse and irregular liquidation of her confidential funds, her proclivity to violence and her unexplained wealth.
The DDS narrative of “walang katalo-talo” was always more bravado than analysis. The troll machine believed it could make that bravado real through sheer volume. What comes next depends on whether Sara Duterte can answer the questions that are eroding what was once an insurmountable lead.
