Dispatch from South Korea (3)

There is a startling similarity between the session halls of the South Korean National Assembly (built in 1975 under Park Chung-hee) and our Batasang Pambansa (built in 1978 under Ferdinand E. Marcos), just as our license plate colors (green, black, and yellow, respectively) seem to be derived from South Korea’s. If these can be said to be a shared experience of authoritarianism manifested even in official architecture, it can be said that even when it comes to our being democracies—once upon a time, the “newly restored” kind—we are contemporaries: we both date our present constitutions to 1987.

But time moved on though, even in the new, there was much to strike a familiar chord in politically active Filipinos: from music to mobilizations, to sectors organizing and expressing themselves, martial law in Seoul seemed like a glitzy, glammed up remake of Filipino memes and tropes. For Filipinos, at least those of a certain age, because these are now based on memories from 20 or 40 years ago, the glow sticks, singing, chanting, and fierce but merry resistance were all too familiar.

K-pop was part of the democratic surge, as were glow sticks and ironic banners; artists, civil society, faith-based groups and scholars weighed in. The anthem of the protests became “Into the New World” by Girls’ Generation (a close second was Aespa’s “Whiplash”) which underscores how there was a feminist angle, too. Yoon Suk-yeol has been described as rising to power “in 2022 on an anti-feminist platform and has been criticized for undermining efforts to promote gender equality.”

For Filipinos and other foreigners, attention (and the coverage) moved on from Seoul after the vote to impeach the South Korean president. But the drama continues, with the same president refusing to accept official summons, and genuinely worrisome questions over whether the South Korean constitutional court can effectively try and reach a verdict on the embattled (and suspended) chief executive. Meanwhile, the political battle between the President’s party and the opposition continues, with a new debate on how to impeach the unelected Prime Minister, or who will be acting president for the duration of the impeachment trial.

Most interesting are discussions that try to go beyond the current political battle (which the president may still win, procedurally, but which he has utterly lost in terms of public opinion which is overwhelmingly hostile to him), in an effort to try to fix the institutional shortcomings of South Korean democracy.

An interesting summary of the more frequently discussed proposals includes shifting from a five-year single-term presidency to a four-year one with one reelection possible; the adoption of a parliamentary Cabinet system; putting in place a semi-presidential system, splitting power between the President and the PM; instituting greater parliamentary oversight; and a form of emergency powers.

Others, however, argue that “hanging the system alone won’t fix deeper problems in Korean politics, such as extreme polarization; lack of compromise culture; regional voting patterns; weak party system; and … revenge politics”—which sound very familiar to us Filipinos.

To what extent these discussions extend to larger South Korean society would be interesting to know. I don’t suppose we Filipinos are unique in the number actually interested—never mind being adequately informed about such things—can’t be very big. The real question is whether public opinion is conducive to institutions attempting some sort of concrete change to the existing rules. In the past, Filipinos have found it impossible to achieve a consensus on anything positive—but more easily achieved consensus when it comes to things they didn’t want. No one could forge a consensus on political change but enough were suspicious of politicians and their motives, to oppose any political-inspired proposal to change the system.

Combined with the shortcoming of our present Constitution, which is that we have an operating system impossible to update, we have the added problem that because the rules themselves hardly allow it; anyone wanting to try it has to resort to pretty difficult-to-explain maneuvers that antagonize the public.

And yet beyond death and taxes, if there’s anything perennial in the Philippines, it’s hope—that somehow, someway, through some miracle, things just might get better. You have to wonder if we are truly alone in this regard.

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Email: mlquezon3@gmail.com; Twitter: @mlq3