Philstar.com takes down own report but publishes DOF response

JEERS TO Philstar.com for taking down its own report on the country’s agreements with China while publishing a Department of Finance (DOF) letter protesting its contents. 

On April 1, Philstar.com published an article titled “China projects in Philippines found riddled with ‘secretive conditions’”. It claimed that the country’s contracts with China give it the advantage in the settlement of debts incurred by the government under the $493.08 M ‘Build, Build, Build’ program.

The article cited the March 2021 study “How China Lends: A Rare Look Into 100 Debt Contracts with Foreign Governments” by AidData, a Virginia, USA-based think tank. Reporters Ian Nicolas Cigaral and Prinz Magtulis claimed that the government contracts with China on the construction of the Kaliwa Dam, Chico River Pump Irrigation, and Philippine National Railway (PNR) South Long Haul projects subject the Philippines to the “persistent threat of a debt trap.”

When sought for comments, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and former socio-economic planning chief Ernesto Pernia did not respond.

Philstar.com nevertheless published the report, but took it down at 4:55p.m. on April 1, apparently upon receiving a letter from the DOF which it published the next day. Addressed to Miguel Belmonte and Kevin Belmonte, the respective CEOs of PhilStar Media Group and PhilStar Global Corporation, Dominguez wrote that “instead of the Philippine contracts’ being riddled with secretive conditions, it is in fact the Philstar article which is riddled with inconsistencies, half-truths, and outright lies.”

Whatever inaccuracies the report may have had, the news site should have kept the article online together with the DOF protest.  Without the report as reference, readers could no longer evaluate the response.

It is right for the media to monitor, scrutinize and question the terms of government contracts with any other country or entity. Such international agreements entail obligations that outlast the administration which signed on to them.

This task is even more urgent for the contracts between the Philippine government and China; because of the history of previous deals with China, China’s dismissal of an arbitral decision which favored the Philippines’ claim over its territorial waters, its aggressive activities in the West Philippine Sea and President Duterte’s continued and demonstrated partiality for China.

Journalistic reporting like all human efforts can err, but even such reports have a function in broadening the scope of public discussion about complex matters. In matters of foreign policy and international debt, the robust and unfettered debate and exchange of views make it possible for the public to evaluate for themselves the decisions that officials make on their behalf.