When Kiko Pangilinan and Bam Aquino woke up on Election Day, all they had was a slim chance to get into the Magic 12 of the Senate race as both had stayed largely in the margins of surveys in the week leading up to May 12, 2025.

Aquino, in fact, said they were looking at “anywhere from six to 10,” while Pangilinan said it was already “in God’s hands.”

But by around 9 p.m. on Monday, or two hours after the polling precincts closed and the votes started to trickle to the Commission on Election’s (Comelec) media server, it became clear that the surveys missed something.

Based on the partial and unofficial results as of May 13 with 97.22 percent of transmitted votes, Aquino received a whopping 20.6 million of votes, sweeping the Calabarzon region and the crucial Lingayen-Lucena corridor and faring pretty well in northern Luzon, the bailiwick of the Marcos family. This number put him on a comfortable second spot, next only to Senator Bong Go.

Pangilinan, who had been subjected to a massive smear and disinformation campaign throughout the campaign period, so far had received more than 15 million votes and is placed on the fifth spot, ahead of survey frontrunners broadcaster Ben Tulfo, former senators Ping Lacson and Tito Sotto.

If they hold their respective places until all election returns are transmitted, analysts said this would be one of the biggest upsets in recent election history.

Aquino largely credits their apparent win to the youth votes, with Millennials and GenZ making up 63 percent of the voting population for this year’s midterm polls.

“And palagay ko sila (youth) ‘yung malaking factor sa pagkapanalo namin ni Kiko (And I think they [youth] are the big factor to mine and Kiko’s win),” he told the media in his campaign headquarters in Quezon City after the partial results got in.

The presumed senator’s claim was not without basis.

Both Aquino and Pangilinan topped mock polls in state and private universities and colleges, even in Mindanao region, the turf of the Duterte family.

In vote-rich Calabarzon region, both lawmakers consistently topped the mock senatorial election polls of the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, Southern Luzon State University, and Batangas State University.

The duo also received crucial endorsements down the last stretch of the campaign period, with Aquino securing the support of the influential Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC), known for its command vote of between two and three million votes.

Aquino and Pangilinan were both endorsed by Bro. Eddie Villanueva’s Jesus Is Lord (JIL) Church, as well as the top leaderships of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

Pangilinan, while missing out on the INC endorsement, was backed by the two most influential families—the Remullas and the Garcias—in vote-rich Cavite and Cebu, respectively. Social media posts showed his name on some of the sample ballots in the provinces.

“Malaking bagay yun. Marami ring LGUs (That’s big. A lot of LGUs, too),” Aquino said of the last-minute endorsements.

For Pangilinan, it would have to take a miracle for him to win the Senate contest, given the deluge of disinformation on social media about him; not counting that he had dropped significantly from the winning circle based on pre-election surveys.

“We didn’t expect ‘yung ganitong paglabas ng resulta dahil nga base sa lahat ng mga surveys wala tayo lagi sa Top 12 (this result because based on all surveys, we are not in the Top 12). And therefore, na-sorpresa rin tayo (we were surprised) but at the back of our minds, there is one path to victory and it all depended to the last big push, iyong huling (the last) big push which we did,” he explained.

“Sabi ko nga kailangan ko ng milagro para manalo. Mukhang iyon ang nangyari (I said I needed a miracle to win. It looks like that’s what happened). In the last minute, maraming decided who said sige bigyan natin ng tiyansa ang ating naging mensahe (many decided to give our message a chance),” he added.

During the final stretch of the campaign, when he was lagging behind in pre-election surveys, the comebacking senator took his campaign up a notch by conducting a Luzon caravan that took him from Ilocos Sur and down to Pangasinan and Pampanga then, finally, to Bulacan and Quezon City.

Pangilinan was also banking heavily on last-minute decisions, given the propensity of voters to pick who to vote for on Election Day itself.

“Mukhang (It looked like) at the last moment, at the last minute they decided tayo’y dapat suportahan at nakita nila ang pangangailangan natin kasama si Bam sa Senado (that they need to support us and they saw our needs with Bam in the Senate),” he added.

With the duo’s return to the Senate, they are expected to join Senator Risa Hontiveros in the minority bloc and push for transformational changes and reforms in education, food security, prices of food, social justice, and job security.

The pink votes, referring to former vice president Leni Robredo’s supporters, are the two Senate bets’ ever-dependable base votes, and they certainly showed up in numbers.

Both incoming senators said they neither have the big machinery nor the funds to launch a nationwide campaign.

But what they lacked in the political machinery that used to define the once powerful Liberal Party (LP), which Pangilinan continues to be president of and Aquino left for Katipunan ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP), they more than made up with volunteers coming from the realm of the entertainment industry and ordinary Filipinos.

And the “Kakampinks,” as they like to call themselves, are very much alive during this election, organizing house-to-house campaigns, distributing flyers, pamphlets, and other campaign materials, and attending campaign sorties to express their support for the tandem.

In separate occasions, Pangilinan and Aquino have expressed their gratitude for a volunteer-driven campaign.

With the duo’s return to the Senate, they are expected to join Senator Risa Hontiveros in the minority bloc and push for transformational changes and reforms in education, food security, prices of food, social justice, and job security.