Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte surged to the top of the latest Tangere senatorial preference survey for the 2028 elections, gaining 9 percentage points in a month as actor Dingdong Dantes broke into the Magic 12.
Duterte garnered 42.7 percent in the Oct. 21–23 survey, up from 33.7 percent in September, overtaking former senator Grace Poe and Sen. Raffy Tulfo, who slipped to third place.
Poe retained second place with 38.3 percent, up 1.6 percentage points, while Tulfo dropped to 36.5 percent from 39.9 percent in the previous survey.
Sen. Robin Padilla ranked fourth with 36.4 percent, followed by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who climbed from the eighth-to-ninth-place range to fifth with 34.6 percent, an increase of eight percentage points.
Broadcaster Ben Tulfo placed sixth with 32.7 percent, while former president Rodrigo Duterte’s son Paolo Duterte ranked seventh with 30.6 percent.
Boxing champion Manny Pacquiao was eighth with 29.2 percent, followed by Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero with 24.9 percent and Sen. Sonny Angara with 22.5 percent.
Dantes entered the so-called Magic 12 in 12th place with 20.7 percent, after ranking outside the top 24 in September.
Akbayan Rep. Chel Diokno placed 11th with 22.1 percent, slightly down from 22.9 percent in the previous survey.
Former senator Loren Legarda fell out of the top 12, dropping to 13th place with 19.5 percent, down three percentage points.
Dantes led Legarda by 1.2 percentage points, within the survey’s reported margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
Other candidates who improved their rankings included Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, who climbed three places to 16th with 17.2 percent, and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Adiong, who rose from 24th to 19th with 16.7 percent.
Transport advocate and former police officer Colonel Bosita also entered the top 24, placing 21st with 15.2 percent.
Tangere said the survey was non-commissioned and conducted through a mobile application among 2,400 respondents from Oct. 21 to 23.
It reported a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level and used quota-based stratified random sampling.
The respondents were distributed across five major regions: Metro Manila, 12 percent; Northern Luzon, 23 percent; Southern Luzon, 22 percent; the Visayas, 20 percent; and Mindanao, 23 percent.
