Korean Invasion in Baguio City?
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
- Koreans using Filipinos as dummies, for establishing their businesses. Illegal businesses. They are marrying Filipina, which they uses as dummies. Through willing Filipino “dummies” they are buying up whatever land they can get their hands on. Since Filipinos really do not plan for the future generations (judging from all the tree-cutting going on in the whole country) and live for the “now” (always just using the excuse that they need to make a living), they do not understand or care about the adverse effects of their actions. Filipino property ownership must remain with the Filipinos — once the land is gone it is gone forever. We are not nor ever will be equipped to buy it back.
- Illegal recruitment
- Having a lot of properties, exceeds the 40% limit for foreigners
- The law is circumvent to favor them
- They have driven real estate prices up.
- Many are doing business here without the necessary permits, and many are overstaying without notifying the immigration authorities.
- The government is favoring them, because they got the money. They can go out of the country, even If they committed a crime, for example: murder, and others.
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)
ΓΌ 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.
Hello po �� im a student po from UB can we ask for your name po? Salamat
ReplyDeleteMy name is Diamond Kelsch. Sorry, ngaun lang ulit nagupdate..
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