Mindanao Firewall Holds, But the Rest of PH Already Voted ‘Never Again’ on Duterte-Marcos 2.0

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — May 13, 2026

LISTEN closely, mga ka-kweba.

The knives are already out, the blood is still warm, and the corpse of the once-invincible UniTeam alliance is lying on the operating table—prodded, poked, and now officially pronounced brain-dead by a single OCTA Research “Tugon ng Masa” survey released this very week.

Robredo-Tulfo: 44%. Sara Duterte-Imee Marcos: 40%. Undecided: 16%. Margin of error: ±3%.

Fieldwork: March 19-25, 2026—precisely when the Senate was turning itself into a five-star hotel for an ICC fugitive and the House was impeaching Sara Duterte for the second time.

This isn’t a poll. It’s a crime scene.

And every lazy commentator now peddling the comforting fairy tale—“Oh, the people are just exhausted, they want stability, not ideology”—is either a paid mourner at the funeral or too cowardly to admit what we just witnessed: the premature, farcical, and thoroughly deserved collapse of the post-2022 political order.

Autopsying the OCTA Farce: Clowns, Hypotheticals, and Dying Dynasties

Let us eviscerate this survey with the cold precision it deserves.

First, the sheer theatrical absurdity of the exercise.

OCTA asked 1,200 Filipinos to choose between two tandems featuring four politicians who have all, at various points, sworn they aren’t running.

Leni Robredo is happily eyeing a second term as Naga mayor. Raffy Tulfo has repeatedly said 2028 is not on his bingo card.

Sara Duterte is busy surviving impeachment and ICC heat. Imee Marcos… well, she’s just Imee.

Yet here we are, treating this hypothetical like gospel. It’s not polling; it’s political fan fiction with a ±3% confidence interval.

The timing? Suspiciously exquisite. Right after NBI agents chased “Bato” Dela Rosa through the Senate halls like a bad action movie, right after the pro-Duterte bloc staged a midnight coup to install Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate President, right after Resolution 395 slapped down the ridiculous “protective custody” charade.

OCTA didn’t just catch a mood. It caught the exact moment the UniTeam’s Shakespearean self-immolation became national television.

The motivations are transparent. The firm gets headlines. The Marcos camp quietly sharpens its knives against its former ally.

The Duterte machine screams “mind conditioning!” while its Mindanao firewall—86% for Sara-Imee—reveals the ugly truth: one region remains emotionally welded to the brand, while the rest of the archipelago is already shopping for alternatives.

Class D and E split? Duterte-Marcos still clings to the poorest voters by a hair, peddling the same strongman nostalgia that once delivered landslide victories.

But even there, cracks are showing. The poor are not stupid; they are simply exhausted by the same faces promising the same miracles while inflation bites and scandals multiply.

Dissecting the Causes & Contradictions

Now let us dissect the causes of this political hemorrhage—the UniTeam’s suicide by a thousand self-inflicted cuts.

What began as a 2022 marriage of convenience between Marcos loyalists, Duterte die-hards, anti-liberal clans, and machinery politicians has devolved into a public divorce spectacle.

Impeachment dramas. Budget wars. Corruption whispers. Foreign policy clashes.

ICC intrigues that turned “Bato” into a Senate fugitive and exposed the alliance’s rotten core.

The result? Coalition exhaustion made flesh. Marcos voters quietly migrating toward anything that smells less destabilizing.

Duterte loyalists rejecting Imee as the ultimate dynastic insult. Anti-Duterte centrists consolidating behind the very woman they once dismissed as finished.

And the data screams the farce: a Duterte-Marcos tandem no longer adds votes—it subtracts them through contradiction and fatigue.

The Actors’ Impossible Choices

Every actor now faces impossible, Machiavellian choices.

Robredo’s denial? Classic. She projects principled distance while her brand undergoes the most successful political resurrection since Lazarus.

Tulfo’s refusal? Even shrewder—he remains the populist bridge without the baggage of commitment, the man who can deliver Class D/E grievance votes without ever having to govern.

Sara’s camp? Imee is the glaring liability: no youth fire, Marcos fatigue setting in, and an ideological muddle that confuses everyone.

Is this anti-Marcos? Pro-Marcos? Continuationist chaos?

The Duterte machine is formidable—governors, congressmen, religious networks, social media armies—but it is now fighting on two fronts: outside Mindanao and inside its own former alliance.

Slaughtering the Stability-vs-Purity Fallacy

And here is where the emerging narrative collapses under its own weight—the sacred cow we must slaughter: the lie that Filipinos, “exhausted by political warfare,” are now “trading ideological purity for stability-seeking coalitions.”

Spare me the elite-manufactured copium. This is not wisdom born of fatigue.

This is the same old dynastic recycling dressed up in stability drag. Robredo-Tulfo is not some revolutionary reformist-populist mashup; it is still name recall and brand management meeting grievance television.

Duterte-Marcos is not continuity; it is the revenge of the same families who have dominated for decades.

The choice is false precisely because it remains unanchored to principles, facts, or the nation’s true good. It is anchored to popularity, money, and empty promises.

The electorate isn’t seeking stability. It is being herded toward the least offensive rerun because no one has offered a genuine alternative.

Impacts, Consequences & the Only Way Forward

The consequences are already terrifying and farcical. Intensified regional polarization—Mindanao versus the rest—threatens to turn every election into a referendum on Imperial Manila.

Democratic institutions held hostage by family feuds: the Senate as sanctuary, impeachment as theater, the Supreme Court as referee in a game no one wants to lose.

The 16% undecided bloc—soft Marcos voters, exhausted centrists, skeptical poor, young swing voters—will be the prize in a bidding war of patronage and fear-mongering.

Enough.

Filipinos, reject this cynical game. Stop rewarding dynastic brands and performative populism. Demand leaders who choose principles over polls, facts over fan fiction, and the nation’s long-term good over short-term name recall.

The post-2022 order is collapsing earlier than anyone expected—not because the people are tired of ideology, but because the old ideologies were always just costumes for power.

The autopsy is complete. The body is cold. Now bury it properly—and for God’s sake, don’t let the next Frankenstein rise from the same grave.

— Louis “Barok” C. Biraogo
Kweba ni Barok
May 13, 2026

Key Citations

A. News Articles

“OCTA on hypothetical presidential and vice presidential tandems for the 2028 elections.” Inquirer.net, Inquirer Group of Companies, n.d., https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2227746/octa-on-hypothetical-presidential-and-vice-presidential-tandems-for-the-2028-elections.

B. Official Websites

International Criminal Court. “The Court.” International Criminal Court, https://www.icc-cpi.int/.

OCTA Research. “Home.” OCTA Research, https://octa-research.com/.

C. Reference Pages

“UniTeam Alliance.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniTeam_Alliance.

“Leni Robredo.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leni_Robredo.

“Raffy Tulfo.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffy_Tulfo.

“Sara Duterte.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Duterte.

“Imee Marcos.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imee_Marcos.

“Ronald dela Rosa.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_dela_Rosa.

“Alan Peter Cayetano.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Peter_Cayetano.