Has Leni Robredo decided on a 2028 presidential run?

Ahead of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to her city on Saturday, February 21, Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo said that she had already made a decision in relation to calls for her to run in the 2028 presidential elections — made not just that day, when her name was again being raised as a potential candidate, but “a long time ago.”

“Ang tigsasabi baga kaya sakuya dapat mag-decide. Haloy na ako naka-decide (Others have been telling me that I should decide. I had decided a long time ago),” the Naga City mayor said in response to questions about a possible 2028 presidential run, in an interview with local media on Friday, February 20.

Robredo might have been referring to her response to the same question in October 2024, when she, that early, flatly thumbed down the possibility. At the time, she had just filed her candidacy to run for Naga mayor.

Eight months into her new job as Naga chief, she said her decision remained the same — her priority is Naga City.

“I don’t want to be distracted because we have a lot of work to do. Our response [to calls to run] is the same: regrets, because I don’t want to be always leaving [Naga],” she said in Bicolano.

Talk about the 2028 elections had been reignited by Vice President Sara Duterte’s announcement earlier this week that she will seek the presidency in 2028. Attention then turned to Robredo, as well, especially as Marcos — her nemesis in the 2016 and 2022 elections — was due to pay a visit to her city just days after Duterte’s bombshell.

Robredo was the staunch rival of Marcos Jr. in the 2022 presidential elections, where she placed a distant second with 14.8 million votes against the latter’s 31 million. 

Robredo, however, clarified speculations that Marcos’ Naga visit was triggered by Duterte’s declaration. She said the visit had been scheduled as early as January 26, as part of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)’s Oplan Kontra Baha program. 

Marcos Jr. is set to arrive on Saturday at the Jesse M. Robredo Coliseum, the major evacuation center in Naga, since the local government’s request for repairs on the facility had already reached him. 

Robredo believed that the request was reinforced during her meeting with DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon the first week of February. According to her, Dizon said that the coliseum should be repaired immediately because of its current structural condition. 

During his visit, Marcos also plans to check the local government’s flood mitigation efforts, particularly the clearing operations in various creeks in Naga City. 

Since 2025, the local government has been tracing lost creeks and clearing clogged waterways as part of its flood mitigation work, triggered by the extensive flooding and devastation caused by Severe Tropical Storm Kristine (Trami) in 2024. – Angelee Kaye Abelinde/Rappler.com