Eighteen of 47 member states of the UNHRC voted in favor of the draft resolution filed by Iceland to investigate so-called extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.

Malacañang dismissed earlier reports that the Office of the President has ordered the suspension of all negotiations on loan agreements and grants with countries which backed the resolution adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution to look into the human-rights situation in the country.

According to Palace mouthpiece Salvador Panelo, no such instruction came from President Rodrigo Duterte or any other official from the Palace.

“The President has not issued any memorandum suspending loans and negotiations involving 18 countries that voted in favor of the Iceland resolution,” Panelo clarified via text message to reporters on Friday evening.

“Not true Just talked to PRRD (President Rodrigo Roa Duterte),” he added.

A “confidential memo” which was supposedly issued by the Palace directed all “Department Secretaries and Heads of Agencies, Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations (GOCCs) and Government Financial Institutions (GFIs)” to renege from deals made with “the governments of the countries that co-sponsored and/or voted in favor of the aforesaid resolution, pending the assessment of our relations with these countries.”

A copy of the said memo that circulated online showed the document as signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea “by order of the President.”

Panelo, asked if concerned government agencies are business as usual with the 18 nations who favored the resolution with regards to loan agreements and other deals, answered in the affirmative.

To recall, it was last July when the minority bloc of the UNHRC—Argentina, Austria, Australia, Bahamas, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Italy, Peru, Mexico, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine, the United Kingdom including Northern Ireland and Uruguay—greenlighted the proposal of Iceland for the body to probe the alleged human rights abuses in the country in connection with the Duterte administration’s unrelenting campaign against narcotics.

The Philippine government slammed the UNHRC for adopting the resolution with Malacañang tagging it as “grotesquely one-sided”, “based on unverified facts and figures”, and “an affront” to the country’s sovereignty.

Mr. Duterte also did not mince his words on the issue and said that he “would rather go to hell” than be put behind bars because of his administration’s war on illegal drugs.

“I have so many cases filed against me because of drugs. But I’m telling you, I will drag them all to hell with me before they can put me in jail,” the President said in one of his previous public engagements.