Careful and Careless Repairs

Crisis Responses to Transportation-Related Reputational Disasters in the Philippines

Abstract

Due to various geographical and economic conditions in the Philippines, public transportation remains a debilitated system in the country. This article argues that the shortcomings of both public and private institutions in repairing the national transportation system not only constitute an infrastructural crisis, but a reputational crisis as well. This nationwide situation raises the questions of whom the Filipino public attributes this transportation crisis, what crisis strategies institutions have employed over the years, and how ethical such crisis communications have been. Using Image Repair Theory and Care Ethics framework, this article presents a qualitative content analysis of two case studies which categorizes and critiques the crisis response messages published between 2017 and 2023 of a public and private local organization. Results indicate that between these organizations, the latter responded ethically to reputational crises. Focusing on corrective, proactive, and inclusive image repair strategies that empathize with the Filipino stakeholders, private sector communications exhibited ethical care on both affective and relational dimensions of the care ethics framework. On the other hand, by displaying aggression, apathy, and dishonesty through strategies of denial and offense reduction—the public sector communications exacerbated the local public sector crisis. This article contributes to existing crisis communication literature focusing not only on applying crisis responses typologies but also on evaluating and prescribing crisis communications guided by an ethical framework of care.