SEVERAL weeks ago, the Philippine Star found itself at the center of controversy for a day or two after publishing a story about China’s sovereign lending that drew a sharp rebuttal and demand for a correction from Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd.

The Philstar story, titled “China projects in Philippines found riddled with secretive conditions,” was published last April 1. It was a report on a study called “How China Lends: A Rare Look into 100 Debt Contracts with Foreign Governments,” which was published in late March by a think tank called AidData, an organization backed by the Global Research Institute at the College of William & Mary, the Center for Global Development, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics in the United States, and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany.