THE argument that news outlets should desist from disclosing, as a news item, the entry of any tropical weather disturbance in the Philippine area of responsibility, or PAR, because it only leads to confusion and even undue stress to people is, for lack of a better word, disturbing.

What is even more disturbing is that such a claim is premised on the fact that people do not have the capacity to understand such technical terms, in that they wrongly equate entry into PAR as actual landfall, which then triggers panic and/or confusion.