By Carlito Pablo
The youngest son of former Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte could be the family’s Plan B in the 2028 presidential election.
Sebastian “Baste” Duterte may replace his sister Sara as the family’s presidential contender, if the latter is convicted in her impeachment trial, and as a result, disqualified from public office.
Sebastian Duterte is currently mayor of the Dutertes’ home turf of Davao City.
At a press conference on October 6, 2026 in Davao, Sara Duterte said that Sebastian may run for national office in 2028.
Currently the Philippine Vice President, Sara Duterte recalled that their mother Elizabeth Zimmerman once told her to just return to Davao City and let Sebastian go for a national position.
“I think I have mentioned this before. My mother really told me to come home to Davao and said that Baste should be the one to run nationally,” Duterte said in a report by the Manila Times newspaper.
The paper noted that Sara did not identify what national position their mother had in mind for Sebastian.
However, Sara indicated four years ago that her brother may run for president.
In a report by the Manila Bulletin on June 25, 2024, Sara said in an interview in Cagayan de Oro City that their mother has a plan for Sebastian.
“My mother (Elizabeth Zimmerman) told me my brother will run for senator. Then he will run for the presidency in the 2028 elections,” Sara said in a local dialect.
Sara also said that their mother asked her to return to Davao City and run as the city mayor, a position she has previously held.
Sara is facing impeachment trial before the Senate sitting as an impeachment court.
Prosecutors have laid four articles of impeachment against the vice president.
These charges include alleged misuse of public funds at the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education, unexplained wealth, bribery and procurement irregularities, and threats to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Marcos’ cousin and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Sara and Marcos ran as a ticket in 2022 national election. Their alliance broke soon after their electoral victory.
Under the Philippine Constitution, conviction by an impeachment court requires the vote of at least two-thirds of senator-judges.
If convicted, Sara faces removal from office and perpetual disqualification from any public office.
Salvador Panelo is a former spokesperson and chief legal counsel for ex-president Rodrigo Duterte.
Writing in his Manila Times column dated October 5, 2026, Panelo said that the Marcos administration has “no viable presidential candidate to defeat VP Sara in an honest election if she is acquitted”.
“If Duterte is convicted — using foul means such as lowering the voting threshold for conviction, jailing senators who are certain to vote for exoneration, and threatening other senators to force them to vote for conviction — it still has no winning bet even if it coalesces with the yellows or with the leftists or with both. It has no winning bet against a substitute formidable candidate in the person of Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte or Sen. Robin Padilla or Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go.”
Panelo also wrote, “And if the anti-Duterte forces who are ensconced in power succeed in jailing Mayor Baste and Senator Robin on trumped-up criminal charges, or throw Sen. Bong Go into the dungeons at The Hague, a surprise dark horse waiting in the wings will emerge, and will be swept to the presidency by a tidal wave of votes coming from millions of Duterte followers, and millions more from nonpartisan awakened citizens, angered by the conviction of VP Sara under an orchestrated illegal process, plus an equal number of overwhelming sympathy and protest votes from voters who are outraged by the political retribution heaped on the Dutertes and their Senate allies.”
Antonio Tinio is a party-list representative in Congress for the ACT Teachers party-list group.
An April 13, 2026 report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Tinio saying that the Dutertes are preparing for the worst, which is the potential conviction of Sara before the impeachment court.
“It is clear that there is a Plan B for the Dutertes, and that is Baste, so maybe the Duterte camp is nervous that the vice president may be impeached, and this may continue toward a conviction at the Senate,” Tinio said in Filipino in the paper’s report.
Tinio noted that Sebastian has been designated as president of the Dutertes’ Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP) and that a new movement called Reform Alliance for Good Governance and Accountability (Rage) Coalition was formed.
“That’s why, as early as now, the Dutertes are presenting a Plan B: they will let another Duterte run for president. That is why Baste was appointed as president of PDP, and they are building a coalition to give another Duterte a national platform,” Tinio said in Filipino.
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