Koreans in the Philippines
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 89,000~100,000 (2015) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|
Luzon: Metro Manila, Baguio, Angeles City Visayas: Metro Cebu, Metro Iloilo-Guimaras, Negros Island Region Mindanao: Metro Davao, Cagayan de Oro |
|
| Languages | |
| Korean, English, Filipino, various Philippine languages | |
| Religion | |
| Mainly Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Korean diaspora |
Koreans in the Philippines, largely consisting of expatriates from South Korea and people born in the Philippines with Korean ancestry, form the largest Korean diaspora community in Southeast Asia and the ninth-largest in the world, after Koreans in Kazakhstan and before 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.
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. Jang Bogo of Unified Silla was said to have visited the country as early as the 8th century. However, there was little further contact until over a millennium later, in 1837, when 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. Around 1935, a few itinerant ginseng peddlers from Uiju, North Pyongan (in present-day North Korea) arrived in the country via Vietnam. Finally, some Korean soldiers came with the Imperial Japanese Army when it occupied the Philippines during World War II; three, also from Uiju, are known to have married local women and chose to 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.
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Wikipedia