RIYADH: In a move to boost links between Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo arrived here last night for a short visit.
“Arroyo’s talks with high-ranking Saudi officials will mainly focus on bilateral issues, global economic crisis and on oil and other matters of mutual concern,” said a senior Philippine official.
Arroyo went to the Philippine Embassy after several Saudi officials, including Minister of Agriculture Fahd Balghunaim, received her at the airport. At the embassy, the president addressed a meeting attended by more than 700 Filipino executives and workers.
Asked about official-level bilateral talks, an embassy official said he was not aware of the specifics of the talks with Saudi officials because this visit was planned on short notice by the president.
“She is on way to Manila via Saudi Arabia and Bahrain (from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland),” he said.
The Philippines is seeking to encourage Saudi investment in food production in the predominantly Muslim southern Philippines. “Saudi Arabia has oil but it lacks food, so we’re exploring the possibility of convincing the authorities to invest in food production in southern Philippines,” said Speaker Prospero Nograles of the House of Representatives of the Philippines during a recent visit to the Kingdom.
Saudi Arabia is a major supplier of oil to the Philippines while the Kingdom is a major employer of Filipino labor. Philippine officials said talks would likely revolve around oil, investment opportunities and issues important to the Filipino expatriate community.
Alex Veloso Bello, president of the Riyadh-based Overseas Filipino Workers Congress (OFWC), said that the OFWC would follow up on the recommendations submitted to Arroyo two years ago.
Among the demands is the formation of a political party for overseas workers, called the Partido NG Pandaigang Pilipino (PPP), which seeks representation of overseas Filipino workers in the Philippine government. Remittances by OFWs represent about 10 percent of the country’s GDP (before adjustment for inflation). In 2007, remittances from workers abroad exceeded $14 billion.
It is unclear yet the effect of the global economic crisis on remittances. In Davos, Arroyo pointed out in a plenary speech at the World Economic Forum that remittances from the US have clearly been adversely affected.
“It was all fine, and then the bubble burst,” she said. “But did we all know that the bubble was getting to be so big?”
As Arab News went to press, several community leaders, who assembled at the embassy to hear the speech of Arroyo, said that they would ask the president to appeal for clemency for a few Filipinos facing the death penalty in the Kingdom.
Some 900,000 Filipinos work in the Kingdom. Other countries in the Middle East that are prime OFW destinations are Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, Bahrain, the UAE and Israel.
Saudi Arabia ranks first among the Middle East countries hiring Filipino workers.
— With input from Abdul Hannan Tago
