Manufacturing Moral Panic: Penal Populist Framing and Strategic Audience Targeting in Duterte's Philippines

The manufacture of moral panic through political discourse represents a distinct and understudied mechanism by which penal populists mobilize public passions and legitimize authoritarian governance. This paper introduces a novel framework analyzing four distinct rhetorical devices: problematization of social issues as emergent dangers, dramatization of threats beyond reasonable evidence, stigmatization of targets through aggressive language, and dictatorization that positions the leader as the sole solution. Through a critical discourse analysis of Rodrigo Duterte's first hundred days as Philippine president, the research demonstrates how these devices strategically target economic and political audiences to transform public perceptions and enable authoritarian governance. By examining Duterte's construction of the "narco state" narrative, the study reveals how penal populists create moral panic - a collective fear that exceeds actual threats to social values and interests - to legitimize both state violence and vigilante action. The economic audience, seeking stability and security, responds to the framing of crime as an existential threat. The political audience, comprising local officials and law enforcement, embraces the narrative of crisis requiring extraordinary measures. Unlike other populist variants that rely on hope or nostalgia, penal populism's distinct emotional dynamic combines fear and moral outrage to justify criminalizing opposition while maintaining popular support. This research contributes to our understanding of populist passions by showing how penal populists weaponize moral panic through targeted framing to reshape political identities and undermine democratic institutions while claiming to defend law and order.