Prince Ejercito

COM41

1. What is the ethical situation described in the article? Explain the context using the

communication process.

- The ethical situation described in the article is the used of fear appeal to conduct risk

communication by the government to the citizens of the Philippines. During the

pandemic the World Health Organization (WHO) have instructed that to prevent

transmission of the virus we should do social distancing and wear face masks as a

preventive measure for this pandemic, in the Philippines other localities and even the

President used fear to instill fear and scaredness to the citizens. An example of this is that

President Duterte remarks like, "... If there is unrest or the situation occurs that people

fight and your lives are on the line, shoot them dead" discourage the public from defying

the heightened community quarantine.

2. What ethical principles were followed or violated in the situation? Why?

- The Principle of Utility was violated in this situation. Principle of Utility stated that

requires that the risk communication activity be conducted while considering the

communication's value, such as its potential to empower everybody engaged, to improve

their lives, to produce better social or individual results, and so forth. This involves

considering the potential advantages and disadvantages of communicating, including any

potential advantages of not communicating. The risk communication process done by the

government is not valuable as it caused panic caused by applying the fear appeal to the

citizen, instead of the citizens to trust the government to take in charge on handling the

pandemic, it just caused fear to the people.

3. What ethical areas and issues were presented in the article? Why do you think they are

ethical issues?

- The ethical issues presented in this article is the fear appeal that the government used. In

a scary and nerve-wracking situation like the pandemic, it is not okay to use fear appeal

(clearly at all costs the fear appeal is not okay to be used as a way of risk communication)

because it might even give wrong information/signals to your constituent. Instead of

employing the dos and don’ts you’re instilling fear in them and making them think that

there is no hope on ending this pandemic.