Koreans in the Philippines, largely consisting of expatriates from South Korea and people born in the Philippines with Korean ancestry, form the second largest Korean diaspora community in Southeast Asia and the 14th-largest in the world, after Koreans in Kazakhstan and after Koreans in Vietnam. As of 2013, statistics of South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade recorded their population at 88,102 people, a fall of 31% since 2009 after a period of rapid growth in the population in the preceding decade.
Many South Koreans living in the Philippines are attracted to the low cost of English-language education and housing, both significantly cheaper than those offered in their native South Korea. The warmer climate is yet another motivating factor for the recent surge in migration. The Philippines is also a popular destination for retired South Koreans on fixed pensions; the Filipino government actively promotes the settlement of South Korean retirees in the country because of the potential lucrative opportunities for the local economy. There are also known cases of North Koreans having been admitted to the Philippines as migrant workers.
Migration history The history of Korean settlement in the Philippines can be divided into five phases. The first, lasting until the end of World War II, consisted of just a few disconnected individuals. Chang Pogo of Unified Silla was said to have visited the country as early as the 8th century. However, there was sparse contact or information of contact over the centuries later. There is brief mention of a Korean noblewoman, Doña Maria Park, who lived around 1572-1636 as a Catholic nun serving with other local Japanese exiled Christian (Kirishitan) nuns under the Jesuit-chaplained Beatas de Meaco (Kyoto) or Miyako no Bikuni (Nuns of Kyoto, 1615–1656) in Manila. Moon Sun-Deuk, a native of Ui Island who survived a shipwreck in the Philippines, was a ray merchant who sailed and drifted to Japan's Okinawa Island with his uncle and four other colleagues, then ended up seeing northern Philippines and lived there for 9 months. Moon had a flair with foreign languages as he acquired the language in Yeosong (Luzon) - possibly Ilocano language, and had a sharp eye for the way the people lived. Considered as Korea's first person to learn a Philippine language, he was able to use his interpretation skills conversing with the five Filipinos who were shipwrecked off Jeju Island in 1801 and were able to return home after nine years. He was the first recorded Filipino interpreter in Joseon dynasty. In 1837, Andrew Kim Taegon and two other Korean Catholics took refuge in the Philippines after fleeing a riot in Macau, where they had been studying. They lived in a monastery near Lolomboy, Bocaue, Bulacan. Around 1935, a few itinerant ginseng peddlers from Uiju, North Pyongan (in present-day North Korea) arrived in the country via Vietnam. Some Korean soldiers came with the Imperial Japanese Army when it occupied the Philippines during World War II; three of these, from Uiju, are known to have married local women and to have chosen remain in the country permanently. One of them, Pak Yun-hwa, went on to establish the Korean Association Philippines Inc. in 1969, which would grow to become the country's largest Korean organization.
The second phase of Korean settlement in the Philippines consisted of the war brides of Filipino soldiers who fought on the side of the UN Forces in the Korean War. About 30 moved to the Philippines with their husbands in the 1960s; in 1975, they formed the Mothers' Association.
Beginning with the third phase, migration began to take on a more economic character. With the growth of the South Korean economy, companies in labour-intensive manufacturing industries responded to increasing wages by relocating their operations to other countries, including the Philippines, beginning in the 1980s. As a result, managers of enterprises both big and small, along with their families, began to increase. The fourth phase, in the 1990s. saw an expansion in the variety of Korean businesses in the Philippines; South Korean businesspeople not from just manufacturing companies, but import-export businesses, restaurants, and construction companies, all founded ethnic-specific business associations in this era.
The fifth phase of migration history, beginning in the late 1990s and 2000s, saw the number of students increase. The influx of students coincided with a more relaxed visa policy of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) aimed at attracting foreign students. It was also marked by growing influence and engagement by the various Korean associations with mainstream Philippine society. For example, the Merchant Association, formed in July 2001 and renamed as the Financial Expert Union Association in 2002, helped to regularise the status of South Korean entrepreneurs who had been working without a proper visa, while the South Korean Used Automobile Import Association fought against a newly introduced prohibition on the importation of used cars, and the Travel Company Association worked with the Philippine Department of Tourism to resolve visa and licensing issues for South Korean tour guides who hoped to work in the Philippines.. The law referred to is the Presidential Statute, Article 156, introduced on 12 December 2002.
This case of migration can be seen in a unique standpoint. Rather than arriving for purposes such as political safety or financial stability, they are rather coming to the Philippines for vacation, leisurely activities, business ventures, or for schooling. In the past, when we look at global migration patterns, people typically leave their countries for safety or financial purposes. This is one of the rare cases in history where a migration pattern so large is coming from a place of stability.
North Koreans In the early 2000s, the Philippines also began to become a transit point for North Korean refugees leaving China en route to South Korea, similar to the manner in which the country turned into way-station for Vietnamese boat people in earlier decades. The Philippines is one of just three Southeast Asian signatories to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the other two being Cambodia and East Timor). Hwang Jang-yop passed through the Philippines after he defected in 1997. In 2001, seven members of a North Korean family transited through Manila. A group of 25 North Korean refugees used the Philippines as a transit point in 2002. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, the number would grow to more than 500 annually by 2005; the Philippine government continued to cooperate quietly with the South Korean government to permit transit of refugees, but reacted coolly to suggestions of admitting North Korean refugees for settlement. Bureau of Immigration records do not show any North Koreans residing legally in the country; however, unnamed BI sources quoted by the media claimed that some North Korean defectors had blended into the much larger South Korean community in the country and settled down there.
Geographical distribution
Luzon Metro Manila
According to MOFAT statistics, the Metro Manila area has the largest Korean population in the Philippines, with 33,267 people. The areas of highest concentration are Quezon City (6,655 people), Manila proper (6,104 people) and Makati (5,643 people). As early as 2002, BF Homes in Parañaque had been noted for its high concentration of Koreans, with local residents saying that every fifth or sixth door had a Korean business behind it such as a restaurant, travel agency, taekwondo gym, or used appliance seller. The most well-known Koreatown in the Metro Manila area is located in Makati's Barangay Poblacion. Most of the Korean businesses can be found in the area bounded north–south by JP Rizal Avenue and Jupiter, and east–west by Makati Avenue and Rockwell Drive, with P. Burgos running roughly through the middle of the area. In Quezon City, the Kalayaan Plaza Building has various Korean businesses, apartments, and a church (one of seven or eight Korean churches in QC that existed in 2005). Increasingly, students are billeted in rented houses in expensive gated communities such as Barangay Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa City.
A Korea Town was also established in the district of Malate in Manila.
Baguio MOFAT statistics showed 4,212 Koreans in Baguio as of 2013. Koreans come to Baguio due to its reputation as the northern Philippines' education capital with good local standard of spoken English, and also its cool climate due to high elevation. The weather and low cost of living is a particular attraction to Korean retirees; the latter factor is disappearing recently but the former remains. In the late 1990s, there was only one Korean restaurant in the city, along with a Korean-owned beauty parlor. The population expansion was led by Korean students who came for English courses during their school breaks. Some enrolled as regular students in local universities. Others brought their families. However, in 2008, it was reported that thousands of Koreans had left Baguio since their businesses went bankrupt in the face of the global economic crisis' effects on the Philippines, dropping the local Korean population from 10,000 to 4,000. A plan for Korean investors to redevelop the Baguio Athletic Bowl in Burnham Park fell apart in early 2010 due to the city government's opposition to the facility's privatization.
The number of language schools aimed at Koreans has expanded rapidly. By 2006, the city officially already had twelve tutorial schools aimed at Koreans. In addition to the tutorial schools, roughly two to four thousand Korean schoolchildren enrolled in local grade schools by 2007. Baguio is also a popular destination not just for youths, but also for Korean nurses who aim to improve their English skills before working in the United States or United Kingdom. However, in 2007, it was estimated that, out of 55 Korean-run language schools in Baguio, 18 lacked the proper permits from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). Problems with school accreditation continued, and by 2011, Koreans in the city agreed to a moratorium on the opening of further English schools, to allow the by-then 115 schools to be audited.
Aside from students, Korean Christians from Busan and Incheon have come to plant churches. South Korean fashion and entertainment have also become trendy in Baguio, affording entrepreneurial Koreans the chance to do good business as importers of cultural products. Koreans participate in local events such as the Panagbenga Festival (Baguio Flower Festival). However, their integration is not entirely without problems: in particular despite estimates that the city had the country's second-largest Korean population following Manila, the municipal records showed only ten Koreans who had permits to operate businesses in the city. It was widely known that many were actually working illegally. Residents complained of illegal businesses which violated foreign ownership limits and underpaid wages, and of loud parties held by Koreans in their apartments. Furthermore, they gained a reputation of being tax-dodgers and corrupt as the Korean businesses contributed little tax revenue to city coffers.
Angeles Angeles City is home of the biggest korea town in the Philippines located at Brgy. Anunas in Angeles