Recently, the crime rate by Koreans has been increasing in the Philippines. According to a report about Korean perpetrators in the Philippines, the MOFA(Ministry of Foreign Affairs) announced that there were 91 Korean criminals in 2013, 137 Koreans in 2014, and 164 Koreans in 2015, so the number of criminals has been increasing. Because there are benefits that they can play golf and abuse prostitution at an affordable price, the number of Korean tourists has increased and that lead to the increase of the criminal numbers. It’s easy for people to find this kind of news about Koreans who abuse prostitution and drugs. Besides, Koreans even received the nickname Criminal Koreans instead of the previous nickname of Ugly Koreans.
  As an example, here is the problematic city called Angeles. This city is also known as 3G: girls, gambling and golf. It means that everyone can gamble, golf and abuse prostitution within 10 minutes.  There is even a statement that men around the ages from 20 to 50 are more common than families on the airplanes to Angeles. When you search Angeles on the internet, there are a lot of keywords related to golf, dance clubs and massages. As Angeles is a kind of central area in the Philippines, lots of Korean people live in this city, and there are also quite a few tourists from Korea. Nowadays, the trip to Angeles is called an imperial tour, and it has many tour packages with golf, prostitution or stuff like that.
  Also, the irresponsible Korean image affected the Philippines badly. There is the most remarkable problem of Kopinos. In the Philippines, the Kopinos problem has stood out for awhile, but we couldn’t find the exact total number of Kopinos even now. Kopino is a mixed word of Korean and Filipino. Originally, Kopino described children who were born between Korean fathers and the Filipina mothers, but nowadays, it is also known as referring to the abandoned children by Korean fathers who marry women from the Philippines, and the children don’t even know who their father is. It’s because the Korean fathers who turn their face away from their children have been increasing. People say that it’s because of the wrong sex-culture and the irresponsibility of Korean men. Even though citizen organizations and groups of overseas Koreans keep helping the people in need, they have not been able to find fundamental solutions yet, and   these incidents are likely to create diplomatic problems between Korea and the Philippines. As this problem became more serious, there was a special documentary program on March 6 on SBS that dealt with the topic about ‘Is it a sin to look for my father?’ Also, there was an accusation  against the human rights activists who made some web sites where people can find their fathers. People insist that the human rights activists violated the image rights by making public the photos of the fathers. We assumed there might be approximately thirty thousand Kopinos, but the institutional system is   still an ongoing problem.
  In other cases, some criminals who consider the Philippines as a shelter have become a serious social problem. Many criminals in Korea think the Philippines is a good place to escape from their crimes because the Philippines is composed of many islands that are easy to hide on. Therefore, many criminals can start gambling businesses without concerns. According to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Republic of Korea, on February 29, there were 672 escaped criminals, which ranked 3rd following China and the United States, in the Philippines.
  Under these kinds of problems, the Korean government has tried to prevent crime. For example, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Republic of Korea and the Philippines prosecution signed an MOU together. For another example, the Korean government refused to let Choi Se-young back into Korea because he had committed murder and escaped to the Philippines. As Ugly Koreans or Criminal Koreans increase, the Korean government needs strict penalties against them. In addition, the Korean government needs to treat Kopinos with an institutional strategy, and it also needs to punish the travelers who are only looking for adult entertainment.

By Kim Soo-min
sm36@cbnu.ac.kr