Following Vice President Sara Duterte’s announcement on Wednesday, February 18, of her 2028 presidential bid, calls for Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo to seek another presidential run have been made by various sectors and personalities.

Understandably, Robredo’s second-place finish in the 2022 presidential elections makes her a logical choice to be the leading challenger to Duterte. The backdrop of the Philippines’ worst corruption scandal necessitates a candidate who clearly stands for good governance. 

But there’s one fact that perhaps many of those calling for Robredo to run again are forgetting: it’s the curse of presidential repeaters.

Post-1986, no repeat presidential candidate has ever won a race. In fact, in most instances, those who lost the first time and tried again a second or third time did worse than in the first attempt.  

Consider the following presidential repeaters:

Miriam Defensor-Santiago

Running under her small People’s Reform Party and with anti-corruption as her battle cry, Miriam Defensor-Santiago placed second in the 1992 presidential elections with 19.73% of the votes (She filed an electoral protest and many believe she won, but that’s another story.) Incumbent Cory Aquino’s candidate, Fidel V. Ramos, also running under a small party, Lakas-NUCD, won with a 23.58% plurality. (READ: 3 ways Miriam Santiago can revive her magic at the polls)

Santiago ran again in 1998, and in a race with 10 presidential candidates, she placed seventh with 2.96% of the votes. 

In her third and last try for the presidency in 2016, Santiago, who had announced before the campaign that she had beaten cancer, placed last among five presidential candidates, getting only 3.42% of the votes. Rodrigo Duterte handily won the race with a 39% plurality. (READ: The last battle of Miriam Defensor-Santiago)

Imelda Romualdez Marcos

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who met Robredo on Saturday, February 21, in Naga City, is probably well aware of the curse of repeat presidential candidates. 

His mother, Imelda, ran in 1992, and in a field of seven candidates, she placed fifth with 10.32% of the votes.

She ran again in 1998 but withdrew from the presidential race at the last minute due to her low ratings. (READ: FAST FACTS: Imelda Marcos, the ‘Iron Butterfly’)

Raul Roco

Another reformist candidate similar to Defensor-Santiago, then-senator Raul Roco ran in the 1998 presidential elections and placed third (behind Joseph Estrada and administration candidate Jose de Venecia) with 13.83% of the votes. 

Roco ran again in 2004 against four other candidates. During the campaign, however, Roco was diagnosed with prostate cancer and took time off from the campaign for treatment. (READ: Looking back: Like Miriam, presidential bet Raul Roco had cancer too)

But news of his questionable health affected his survey ratings. He ended up fourth with 6.45% of the votes in a race narrowly won by incumbent Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (39.99%) in her first attempt at the presidency. (She came to power in 2001 via constitutional succession, not via election.) Arroyo narrowly defeated actor Fernando Poe Jr. of the LDP-KNP, who got 36.51% of the votes.

Eddie Villanueva

Born-again Christian Eddie Villanueva first ran for president in the 2004 elections, and finished last in a field of five candidates. He got 6.16% of the votes. 

He tried again in the 2010 elections, in a field of 10 candidates. Villanueva, running under his party Bagong Pilipinas, placed fifth with 3.12% of the votes. (READ: Eddie Villanueva: Third time lucky?)

Panfilo Lacson

Lacson first ran for president in 2004. Running as an independent and with financial support from a number of wealthy Chinese-Filipinos, he placed third with 10.88% next to Macapagal-Arroyo and Fernando Poe Jr.

He ran again in the 2022 presidential elections and placed fifth with 1.66% of the votes in a field of 10 candidates. (READ: [Newsstand] Ping Lacson’s premature endgame)

The curious case of Joseph Estrada

It would take an extremely popular Joseph Estrada to almost break the curse of repeat presidential candidates. But his case is different from the rest as he won in his first attempt at the presidency. Nonetheless, he can still be considered a repeat presidential candidate. 

Estrada topped the 1998 presidential elections with 39.86% of the votes. He defeated nine other candidates. 

Ousted in the 2001 People Power uprising, convicted of plunder, and pardoned by then-president Macapagal-Arroyo in 2007, he ran again in 2010 and placed second with 26.25% of the votes. Benigno Aquino III, following the death of his mother Cory on August 1, 2009, won the presidential race with 42.08% of the votes. (READ: Looking back at EDSA II: The political paths of Estrada and Arroyo)

Why the curse?  

Each result of presidential repeaters can be analyzed in terms of the candidate’s electoral history, performance in office, election campaign, message, machinery, and whether he or she had enough money. 

In the end, however, the curse of repeat presidential candidates boils down to one important element: they didn’t have the X-factor — that almost magical connection, some say emotional bond, between candidate and voters — to win the race. Estrada clearly had the X-factor, winning in 1998 by a big margin in his first attempt. But even his “Erap magic” failed to break the curse in the 2010 presidential race.

Can Robredo break it if her supporters manage to convince her to run again? Perhaps, but history post-1986 is not on her side.

Robredo has privately told her close allies several times and has publicly declared that she’s not running again for president in 2028. She said she prefers to remain in Naga City and continue her late husband Jesse Robredo’s legacy of good local governance. (READ: Spotlight: Robredo’s anti-corruption campaign in Naga City)

Given the apparent curse of repeat presidential candidates, it is perhaps in the best interest of the opposition that they let Robredo continue her crusade in Naga. 

The opposition is not without candidates who can put up a good fight against Duterte. Yes, it will be an uphill battle, especially given the Duterte fandom in some parts of the Visayas and in large areas of Mindanao. But any of those on the current bench will have an easier time now than in 2022, given the outrage over the Philippines’ worst corruption scandal.

And, if there’s one lesson that the 2025 mid-term elections taught us all, there will be more young voters in 2028 — the youth who surprised everyone by making Bam Aquino No. 2 and Kiko Pangilinan No. 5 in the Senate race and Akbayan No. 1 in the party-list elections. Their numbers may just be enough to pull another surprise in 2028.

Duterte’s early jump in the ring simply makes it urgent for the opposition to select its standard-bearer soon in order to give him or her enough time to catch up with the clear frontrunner. – Rappler.com 

The 1992, 1998, 2004, and 2010 election results data used in this story are from the Philippine Electoral Almanac Revised and Expanded by the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office, 2015; 2016 and 2022 data are from the official canvass of Congress.