Post-election travel notes from Korea

A few days after the midterm elections, I took the opportunity to travel to South Korea from May 15 to 18, 2025, to visit the RCE Sejahtera Forest and Sejahtera Center in Tongyeong, which is about a 1.5-hour bus ride from the city of Busan. RCE stands for Regional Center of Expertise for Education and Sustainable Development (RCE-ESD).

I figured it was the perfect time to immerse myself in Korea’s vibrant and innovative culture of sustainable development, especially since I had also received an invitation to witness the 10th anniversary celebration of the RCE Sejahtera Forest and Sejahtera Center, which was established in May 2015.

The forest and center were designed as open spaces for the local community and as tourism resources in Tongyeong, in harmony with various ESD activities and programs. I was especially impressed with the forest itself and the green or environment-friendly building that houses the Sejahtera Center --a three-story structure with a total floor area of 4,492 square meters, used for educational spaces, exhibitions, and offices.

I mentioned our midterm elections at the start of this article because the smooth and fast bus ride from the Busan West Intercity Bus Terminal to the coastal city of Tongyeong gave me a glimpse of South Korea’s geographic, economic, and industrial landscape. I couldn’t help but compare it to our own country’s economic and industrial development.

South Korea, I learned, is approximately two-thirds (about 70%) mountainous terrain. I saw the many hills myself, interspersed with concrete multi-story buildings nestled in the valleys. The bus ride was smooth, with well-built highways cutting through numerous mountain tunnels and bridges; I lost count on my way from Busan to Tongyeong. In areas with larger plains, I saw swaths of industrial structures, including local and homegrown industrial plants and warehouses.

As I observed the apparently well-planned infrastructure and signs of consistent development, I couldn’t help but reflect on our own country's path. It made me wonder: will we ever have the kind of visionary leadership and political culture needed to consistently steer the Philippines toward a similar level of progress? Mind you, South Korea was poorer than the Philippines right after World War II. We were even considered relatively prosperous in the immediate post-war decades, with GDP per capita higher than South Korea’s. So what happened?

What happened was textbook development strategy at work: South Korea launched a series of export-oriented industrialization policies beginning in the early 1960s. It borrowed heavily from major international institutions and key bilateral partners such as the US, Japan, and Germany. But it used that debt wisely, channeling it into infrastructure, education, and industries that would drive long-term growth --industries like steel, shipbuilding, and electronics. Its leaders were entrusted by the people with the power to improve their lives, and in return, they used that mandate responsibly to deliver on that promise.

It’s not that South Korea has no more problems today. In the southern part of the country where I’ve been, for example, I saw very few young people. It is an aging society, and you’d be lucky to see a crowd, much less one filled with children or young adults. But the services run smoothly and efficiently, and one can truly feel that the country is decades ahead of ours, not just in infrastructure and industrial development, but also in a political culture where leaders are expected to serve the people --and are held accountable when they fail.

It made me ponder: Are the results of our recently concluded mid-term elections pointing us in that direction? (To be continued)