[Editorial] Overseas relief aid

Rep. Jasmine Lee of the ruling Saenuri Party, a naturalized Korean from the Philippines, submitted a parliamentary resolution last week, urging the Seoul government to bolster its assistance for the Southeast Asian country hit by a super typhoon. More than 100 lawmakers supported her move.

Some online postings criticized her for acting as a Filipina rather than Korean parliamentarian. Needless to say, this criticism was inconsiderate and narrow-minded.

The resolution submitted by her is the fourth of its kind seeking to help victims of natural disasters abroad, including the earthquake and ensuing tsunami that devastated Japan’s northeastern coastal area in 2011. As she said, her move was nothing special and, in a sense, one of her duties as a member of the legislature in her adoptive nation.

It is good to see Korean relief organizations, companies and individuals actively join the global humanitarian efforts to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan that ripped through the central islands of the Philippines, leaving thousands of people dead. Their sympathy seems to have been further amplified by a sense of burden toward the Southeast Asian country, which sent soldiers to fight against communist invaders during the 1950-53 Korean War and provided assistance in the process of postwar rehabilitation.

In her speech to parliament last Friday, Rep. Lee said she was proud of Korea’s active participation in the surging international aid for the Philippines. As a country that rose from the ashes of war partly on the back of support from global society, Korea is required more than any other state to join humanitarian relief efforts across the world. It is even more so if the nation is to assume a role fit for its status as a major economic and cultural powerhouse on the global stage.

Aside from the eagerness and sincerity shown by Koreans in rushing to help Philippine victims, a major shortcoming in the country’s capacity for overseas disaster aid has come under the spotlight.

The Seoul government announced early last week that it would offer $5 million in relief assistance to the typhoon-ravaged Philippines in addition to sending a 40-member search and rescue team. The problem is that the pledged sum is far above what is left of this year’s budget for overseas emergency relief aid. Of the $20 million allotted for this purpose, just $1.8 million remains, according to Foreign Ministry officials. The government is thus working on ways to divert funds for other budgetary items to cover the shortfall.

There have been more disasters and accidents than usual around the world this year, but the size of the budget set aside by Seoul for overseas relief assistance appears to fall far short of the relevant level.

The government took the right decision in 2010 to increase the proportion of disaster aid in its official development assistance over the next five years from less than 1 percent to 6 percent, the average for key members of the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. With two years left to achieve this target, the proportion still remains at 1.5 percent.

In the process of deliberating next year’s budget, lawmakers need to ensure a substantial increase in this proportion and in overall ODA spending itself.

President Park Geun-hye sent her spokesperson last week to make a donation during a fund-raising program arranged by a state-run broadcaster to help the typhoon victims in the Philippines. It was certainly a move to show her sympathy, which is shared by the Korean public.

The president may have to back up her compassionate gesture with concrete measures to strengthen the nation’s institutional capability to implement relief aid in cooperation with parliament.