Palace: No halt on loans, grants from nations backing UN investigation

President Rodrigo Duterte has allegedly instructed all departments and state-run firms to halt negotiations and agreements on grants and loans from countries that have backed a United Nations investigation into his war on drugs.

With 18 countries in favor, the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a resolution in July to compile a comprehensive report on Duterte’s three-year crackdown, during which at least 6,700 people have been killed in what police say were shootouts with drug dealers who resisted arrest.

A document seen by Reuters, dated 27 August and signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, said all agencies and state companies should suspend negotiations or agreements “pending the assessment of our relations with these countries.”

Spokesman and legal counsel Salvador Panelo said there is no such order.

“The President has not issued any memorandum suspending loans and negotiations involving 18 countries that voted in favor of the Iceland resolution,” Panelo said in a statement Friday night.

Amid the killing of drug users and peddlers, 11 U.N. experts issued a statement of concern in June about what they called a “staggering” number of deaths during Duterte’s signature campaign.

Human rights groups accuse police of systematic cover-ups and summary executions of anyone associated with drugs, which police deny.

“All concerned officials are DIRECTED to suspend negotiations for and signing of loans and grant agreements with the governments of the countries that co-sponsored and/or voted in favor,” the memo said.

Panelo had previously called the resolution “grotesquely one-sided, outrageously narrow, and maliciously partisan,” arguing that it lacked legitimacy because the 18 council members who backed it was less than the 14 votes against and 15 abstentions combined. (Reuters)