Peter’s Projection 

            This projection portrays the Philippine map in a different way. Unlike other geographical representation, this emphasized more on less developed- countries which is most preferably the countries in the global south. The Philippine is located in the southern part of the globe and like the description of this projection it also can be considered undeveloped country. In this projection, Philippine is visible in the map and its geographical location proved it so. It may have abundant resources but it is not yet discovered because of lack of researches. This projection can be a model of reality to interpret the Philippines as a country that needed more studies and research to compete in the world. The Philippines is ranked as the most corrupt country in Asia, and it lack technological advancement, which hindered it to develop. Like other countries, the Philippine is depending in the aid of other nations, like U.S. which also a factor that hindered it to develop because of the influence given by this core country.

Mercator’s projection

            Even though the Peter’s projection is more accurate than the Mercator’s it also portray the Philippine in the sense that it retained the directions and shortcuts precisely making it useful for navigators. Going back to the history of the Philippines before we are colonized by the Spaniards, it is believed that Ferdinand Magellan is ordered to look for spices in the east and there he found the Philippines. In this projection, Ferdinand Magellan’s direction of navigation can be tracked, from Europe to Asia. The connection of this projection to the Philippines is that the country is also in the history of Europe and this we can see that Europe is bigger and at the center of the projection. This projection just shows how powerful, influential and competent Europe are which is evident today, they are stable. This projection portrays the image on the Philippine based on the influence given to us by the Spaniards and many of our cultural traditions are originally from them. Europe’s influence directly affects our ancestry’s life and until today it is being manifested.

“ROAD TO KALIMUGTONG”

 The film was well directed by Derek Mes de Guzman, and it was a very nice one/. The show was really fun and very realistic. Fun because you can’t actually sleep for the whole hour or let me say you can’t be bored, because the film was so interesting that you can’t get enough to laugh. Maybe one factor of that is because of those characters that portrayed their role. One of this is Jinky and her youngest brother who shwon most of time in various scences. Another are their two brothers called “Tang and Manong” and their grandfather. Though I could say that because of its funny yet learning scenes, it is just so very over acting that most of the characters tend to lose the essence of their character in showing their emotions in a particular scene. The film was so nice not to be serious enough with the lines they have to say. Another is that some scenes are to exaggerated that you can’t seem to be enjoying a lot , though it is happening in real life that we see because of the lack of emotions that must be given out by the character the lines are not properly executed.

            The film is so nice that everyone must see and watch if they really look for a very realistic, simple and nourished the learning of one’s mind. It is realistic because you can see on the clothes, venue, characters in the story are real people who are really experiencing the life or the way of living in Barrio Kalimugtong.

             In their educational system, better facilities, books, school materials and most especially teachers who are capable of teaching the children in barrio Kalimugtong the right and standardized curriculum they need. Even with the medium of language they use in school must be thought properly. The place was so rural that I can’t get enough to pity the children to be learning so much in such case.

The Barrio of Kalimugtong especially those characters who played the role as family living with those kind of life must be thankful enough with the “sayote” and the family that they have. Why? Because if we look into a wider horizon, in  Philippine setting, in the other area, there are lots of poor family who cannot eat enough vegetable to sustain their starving stomach, and sayote is a much help for the family in the film in Barrio Kalimugtong  to eat and plant  sayote as much as they want. What I’m trying to point out is that they can survive in such life and they are more luckier that they can still feed their selves 3X a day compared with other families that cannot even feed their selves because of the poorest life they are encountering that they can’t eat enough meals 3X a day and even suffer from diseases.

Our teacher in political science in 2008, assigned us this topic to work on: Korean Invasion in Baguio City. The report is based on facts gathered from the DFA in Bagiuo, certain journals, and from testimonies of the people living there. The report went well, although alot is still needed to be done, since there is scarce resources written on the topic.

KOREAN INVASION

Baguio has never been a stranger to foreign nationals visiting and living here. In fact, it was “Little America,” a mining and recreation town built by the Americans in the early 20th century. It was only after the 1990 earthquake and US Bases turnover in 1991 that Baguio has turned very Filipino. And not native Cordillera — it has turned more Ilocano, not only in dialect but more in terms of attitude.

In its heyday in the 1980s, Baguio would see busloads of American, Japanese and Chinese tourists, all armed with the latest cameras, taking package tours that included playing at the Hyatt Terraces Casino, horseback riding at Wright Park, shopping at Mines View Park, and golf at Camp John Hay.

After Baguio was devastated, foreign tourists stopped coming and the lowlanders migrated to Baguio in droves to study in our “naturally air-conditioned” schools, most of which do not require an entrance exam to enter, just tuition money.

Now Baguio sees more foreign nationals than ever before and they come from only one country — South Korea.

According to Dominique Cannon-Lee, a Baguio-born Filipino-American who is married to a Korean national, Eric, Baguio is being marketed in Korea as the place where, “for just $2,000/month, you can live like a king.” Of course there are many other places in the Philippines where that amount will go very far but they love Baguio because of the weather and the availability of fluent English speakers.

We first saw them in telenovelas, now we see them in person in our streets.

They walk in droves, with their trademark chinky eyes and off-white complexion, speak with their distinct accent, wear colorful garments. They are also changing Baguio for the native uplanders. In Baguio, the influx of Korean nationals has caught some attention. Baguio now is host to almost 10,000 Koreans. At first, only teenagers came here to study the English language. Most of them stayed for two months during their vacation from school in Korea. Then they started to study full-time in Baguio universities. Before long the Koreans started coming to Baguio with their whole families. 

            Many of the Koreans who were granted alien certificate of residence in the Philippines already acquired vast amount of real properties. Everywhere in the country, they have already made their presence felt, establishing exclusive schools for Koreans, resorts for Koreans, restaurants for Koreans, and hotels for Koreans.

Why are they here?

1. To learn English in order to pass the highly competitive entrance exams for the University of Seoul, that almost guarantees a good job in a big company like Samsung after graduation. To learn English to be able to get around better in Canada where they plan to migrate after their parents retire. And forced retirement in their country seems to be at the very young age of 40 or 45. Their parents cannot afford to quit their jobs just to learn the language, so the kids are sent here instead.

2 To get a degree in, what else, A.B. English from a local university. You will hardly find a Korean taking up a course in medicine or engineering.

3. To invest their retirement money. Because they receive more or less the equivalent of Php25,000,000.00, they use this money to set up businesses and to buy property in the Philippines. They hope that this investment will earn big, and quite a lot of them hope to be able to resell the same business to another Korean (who has just arrived) at a very hefty profit.

4. To buy property because real estate in the Philippines is considered one of the lowest in Asia. And by property, I don’t mean condominium units, which they are allowed to buy. They want to buy land, and huge tracts of it. Now, there are laws in the Philippines that limit the ownership of land by foreign nationals to just 40%, but both the Koreans and their crooked Filipino cohorts are exercising every ploy to circumvent this.

5. To “Christianize” the Philippines. Armed with heavy funding from their born-again churches back home and enviable missionary zeal, many come to the Philippines as missionaries and trainees. The influence of pastors is strong in their culture and many families prefer to send their children to church-run English academies.

6. To get rehabilitated. Many of the young students sent here are problem children who do drugs and join gangs in their country. Although Korea has many government-funded rehabilitation centers, parents prefer to send them to the Philippines instead “because of the shame.”

7. For fun and recreation as tourists, and hopefully to chance upon some good investment. According to Adrian Lee (no relation to Eric), a businessman who has lived in the Philippines for the past 6 years, Korean visitors like three things: golf, ktv and casino.

What businesses do they usually get into?

1. Financing. They have a lot of capital, plus the interest rates they charge will always be higher than what they will receive in their country. They fund projects, grant gambling loans, and just about anything that will earn them some cash profit.

2. Education. They like setting up English Academies. All their schools have to contain the word “Academy” because that’s what their countrymen recognize. This is a lucrative business that we Filipinos keep trying to get into ourselves, but what we have to realize is that the key to the institution’s success is the ability to recruit students — and no Filipino recruiter will succeed in Korea. It seems that the recruiter gets a 20% cut up front as the fee for his placements. Websites are essential tools for recruitment, too, and due to language differences have to be designed by Koreans at a fee of about S2,000.00

3. Restaurants, Retail Stores and Spas. They hardly eat anything other than their own food. So many local groceries now contain imported ingredients and food items that do not have any English translations on them and they’re usually spicy. And there is at least six Korean restaurants that are doing very well in the City.They love their own products and put up their specialty stores for groceries, cosmetics, and health care. They also like spa therapy and have imported specialized equipment from their country to replicate what they have back home.

4. KTV Lounges

5. “Homestay.” This is what they call private homes that are rented as dormitories, for which they charge their countrymen exhorbitant prices, until the latter wise up and find out that they can rent a hotel room or a whole house for the price they pay.

6. Golf. They like to rent whole golf courses or market golfing vacation packages.

7. Computer-based English learning. They hire language coaches to teach those who cannot come to the Philippines via the internet and charge the students by the hour.

8. Consultancies for Immigration, TESDA and DTI. These are government agencies that they have to deal with all the time should they wish to stay, study or do business in the country.

PROBLEMS

 Facts and Statistics

§  2 months extension for Koreans

§  Tourist

·         3,000 and 4,000 each week (peak travel season)

·         Tourist – 4700 (January 2008 – last week)

§  Students

·         permanent – 1,500 (special study permit)

·         Regular student  - 2,000 (Local schools and universities)

§  Business

·         Only 10 Koreans with valid working visas and are allowed to set up businesses here.

·         1500 (not all business tracked by Bureau of Immigration cause there are those Koreans that have illegal business, some of them even use Filipinos to work ) – interview with staff

·         ~ Under the law, a foreigner may only engage in retail trade here if he has a minimum capital of $2.5 million.

§  Students, tourists or permanent residents – is 3,341. (September 6, 2007 – week)

ü  Number of Koreans in Saint Louis University (January 2008, Buhay Slu)

§  192 Koreans out of 350 foreign students

o    Department of tourism

§  14,716 Koreans visited Baguio (19.16% of the total arrival – 2006)

Theoretical

           

Conflict Theory

                        The main assumption underlying the conflict theory: society is a collection of competing interest groups, each with its own goals and agendas.

Relating it to to the study, Koreans tend to compete with old businessmen her in Baguio. If this would go on, the tendency is that they would control portion of the city’s economy which would actually start conflict in the society.

           

Structural Functionalist Theory

We have seen that Korean invasion here in Baguio is a growing problem that if not regulated will create a new Baguio City in a short span of time,

We have known it for a fact that these past few years the increase in the populations of Koreans residing here is evident. Koreans establishing their own business here, both legal and illegal that creates competition among local business. Some Koreans acquire or use more resources that the local settlers. Slowly their culture is entering the mainstream which is degrading the dominant culture here in Baguio City. Metro Baguio is known for preserving its Cordilleran culture, and the influence of the said foreigners is slowly being adopted by the people here in Baguio. Their customs and traditions basically destroy the preserved culture.

Since were using Structural Functionalist Theory, we have considerer some function of this social problem

a)     Koreans contribute to the local economy

b)     Exposing local men with another culture

c)      Baguio city is being advertised in another country

Solutions

1. Tighter immigration processes or procedures

2. Limitation on the years of residence of Koreans in the Philippines

3. Restriction on acquiring real state properties

4. Their businesses must be regularly monitored to ensure compliance with all our national and local laws.

5. Professionalize the teaching of English.

6. We make sure their presence is temporary, not permanent. This means we lease them the land and not sell it to them, we should marry for love and not to escape.