MANILA, 10 April 2005 — A member of the Saudi Shoura Council has said HIV/AIDS screening as a requirement for foreigners seeking jobs in the Kingdom will continue despite a recommendation by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to the contrary.

Lawmakers who attended the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) general assembly in Manila that ended on Friday have called for a ban on compulsory HIV/AIDS screening for those applying for travel visas, university enrolment, jobs, or seeking asylum.

A resolution concurred with by some 600 IPU delegates from 116 countries said they recognized that the human rights of people infected by the disease must be respected and that testing must be made voluntarily.

Asked for a reaction, Dr. Mohammed ibn Ibrahim Al-Hulwah of the Shoura Council told Arab News that while the declaration made by IPU was commendable, protecting the health of one’s own people was paramount.

“We have to care about our own people. We have to consider their protection,” said Al-Hulwah, who headed the Saudi delegation to the IPU meeting.

Relaxing the screening system, he said, could put at risk tens of thousands of Saudis who depend on the services of expatriates.

A large number of Filipinos and other expatriates work as nurses and domestic helpers, many of them caring for children, the elderly and the sick.

Al-Hulwah said a thorough screening is not just to protect Saudi citizens but other expatriates in the Kingdom as well.

He said that the four IPU resolutions would merely serve as guidelines for the Shoura Council and they would not necessarily follow all the recommendations.

Apart from human rights and HIV/AIDS, the IPU resolutions centered on financing and trade, natural disasters, and war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and terrorism.

IPU Secretary-General Anders Johnson said that although these resolutions were not binding, they had been recommended for action in parliaments represented at the conference.

Attending the meeting, along with Al-Hulwah, were 10 other members of the Shoura. They were Gen. Abdal Qadir ibn Abdul Haye Kamal, Dr. Hussein ibn Mohammad Al-Alawi, Ahmed ibn Yusef Al-Turki, Dr. Kadhi ibn Mohammed Al-Aqeeli, Dr. Muhsin ibn Mohammed Al-Tameem, Abdulhakeem ibn Mohammed Al-Moammar, Dr. Abdulrahman ibn Ahmed Al-Jafary, Ibrahim ibn Abdul Aziz Alzahim, Mohammed ibn Hamad Albrahim, and Mohammed ibn Nasser Al-Saeed.

Al-Hulwah also said the Kingdom would help in securing the freedom of Filipino worker Roberto Tarongoy from his kidnappers in Iraq.

Tarongoy, an accountant from Davao in the southern Philippines, was seized in November, along with an American, by suspected insurgents in the war-torn Mideastern country.

He was working for the Riyadh-based Saudi Arabia Trading and Construction Co. (SATCO), which caters food to American occupation forces in Baghdad.

Al-Hulwah said, however, the continuing breakdown of security in Iraq limited what his country and SATCO could do for Tarongoy.

“Our Kingdom will do everything we can do (in the case) but you must know that the security situation in Iraq has collapsed and until it’s improved, nobody can promise to do anything,” he said.

“I don’t know his employer but I’m sure that he will do everything to secure (Tarongoy’s) release. Not only is it good for his business, but because he has the moral, humanitarian, and social obligation to do so,” Al-Hulwah added.

At the conclusion of the IPU, Philippine Senate President Franklin Drilon announced that the attendees also urged developing countries to give over-indebted countries relief and viable rescheduling terms.

At the press briefing on the final day of the conference, Drilon also said the IPU members called on developed countries to give fair trade terms so that global trade would be more beneficial to poor countries.

It also called on its member parliamentarians to allocate funds from their national budgets to reduce poverty and hunger around the world with the ultimate view of reducing the people who suffer hunger by 50 percent by the year 2015.

Drilon, as honorary president of the 112th IPU assembly, emphasized the need for the parliamentarians who participated in the just concluded IPU assembly to show the world that they were not at the conference just to deliver fiery speeches, network with other parliamentarians and attend social gatherings.

“We were here because we believe that if we work together we can effect change,” he said. (With a report from Inquirer News Service)