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In this video, we delve into the rich history of the Philippines and explore why it is considered to be the first republic in Asia. From its revolutionary ro...
- 5 min
- 14
- Pivot Point: Philippines & Beyond
Jan 23, 2018 · Asia’s First Republic. Manny Villar. By Manny Villar. Yesterday, January 23, 2018, was the 119th year of the declaration of the First Philippine Republic, popularly known as the Malolos Republic. This is an important historical event for Filipinos because it signified our determination to prove to the world that we are capable of self-rule.
- Overview
- The First Republic
- The Second Republic
- The 1961 coup
- The Third Republic
- The Yushin order (Fourth Republic)
- The Fifth Republic
- The Sixth Republic
history of South Korea, history of South Korea since the Korean War. For a discussion of the earlier history of the Korean peninsula, see Korea.
The First Republic, established in August 1948, adopted a presidential system, and Syngman Rhee was subsequently elected its first president. South Korea also adopted a National Security Law, which effectively prohibited groups that opposed the state or expressions of support for North Korea. Rhee was reelected in August 1952 while the country was at war. Even before the outbreak of the Korean War (1950–53), there had been a serious conflict between Rhee and the opposition-dominated National Assembly that had elected him in 1948. The dispute involved a constitutional amendment bill that the opposition introduced in an attempt to oust Rhee by replacing the presidential system with a parliamentary cabinet system. The bill was defeated, but the dispute continued at Pusan, the wartime provisional capital, where the National Assembly was reconvened.
When the opposition introduced another amendment bill in favour of a parliamentary cabinet system, Rhee in 1952 countered by pushing through a bill that provided for the popular election of the president. Later, in 1954, Rhee succeeded in forcing the National Assembly, then dominated by the ruling party, to pass an amendment that exempted him from what was then a two-term limit on the presidency. Under the revised constitution, Rhee ran successfully for his third term of office in May 1956. His election for the fourth time, in March 1960, was preceded by a period of tension and violence and was followed by accusations that the election had been fraudulent. Massive student demonstrations took place that culminated in a major event on April 19 in which many demonstrators died. Rhee resigned under pressure six days later and fled to exile in Hawaii, where he died in 1965 at age 90.
The Second Republic, which adopted a parliamentary cabinet system, lasted only nine months. A figurehead president was elected by both houses of the legislature, and power was shifted to the office of Prime Minister Chang Myŏn, who was elected by the lower house by a narrow margin of 10 votes.
The Chang government made some strenuous efforts to initiate reforms. In a society laden with social and economic ills accumulated over a long period of time, however, it failed to cope with the unstable situation created by a violent political change. Rampant political factionalism only made the situation worse. With the ultimate source of authority now vested in the office of the prime minister, all factions, conservative and moderate, engaged in constant maneuvering to win over a group of independents in order to form a majority in the legislature. Before Chang had time to launch a full program of economic reform, the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party was crippled by factional strife within its ranks.
On May 16, 1961, the military seized power through a carefully engineered coup d’état, ushering in a new phase of postliberation Korean politics. The military junta, led by Gen. Park Chung-Hee, took over the government machinery, dissolved the National Assembly, and imposed a strict ban on political activity. The country was placed under martial law, and the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction (SCNR), headed by Park, took the reins of government and began instituting a series of reforms.
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In November 1962 the SCNR made public a constitutional amendment bill that provided for a strong president and a weak, single-chamber National Assembly. The bill was approved by a national referendum one month later. A series of events unfolded in the first half of 1963. In February Park announced that he would not take part in the civilian government to be formed later in the year if civilian political leaders chose to uphold a nine-point “political stabilization proposal.” However, as a result of bitter turbulence within the ruling junta and a chaotic situation created by the proliferation of minor political parties, Park soon changed his mind and proposed that military rule be extended for four years. The proposal met with vigorous opposition from civilian political leaders, but some 160 military commanders, most of them generals, supported the extension. In April, Park, under considerable domestic and international pressure (particularly from the United States), announced a plan for holding elections toward the end of the year. Park was named the presidential candidate of the newly formed Democratic Republican Party (DRP) in late May.
The election for president of the Third Republic took place on October 15, 1963. Park narrowly defeated the opposition candidate, Yun Po-Sŏn, former president (1960–62) of the Second Republic, who had remained in office as a figurehead at the request of the junta to provide constitutional continuity for the military government. When political activity was permitted to resume, Yun led the mustering opposition groups and became the presidential candidate of the Civil Rule Party. In May 1967 Park was elected to his second term of office, and the DRP won a large majority in the National Assembly. Members of the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), whose head was the twice-defeated Yun, claimed fraud and refused for some time to take their seats in the National Assembly.
During his second term, President Park faced the constitutional provision that limited the president to two consecutive four-year terms. Amid extensive political turmoil created by the demonstrations of opposition politicians and students, the DRP members of the legislature passed a constitutional amendment that would make a president eligible for three consecutive four-year terms. The amendment was approved by a national referendum in October 1969. In the presidential elections held in April 1971, Park defeated Kim Dae-Jung of the NDP; however, the NDP made substantial gains, especially in major urban areas, securing 89 seats in the National Assembly as against 113 seats won by the ruling DRP.
In December 1971, shortly after his inauguration to a third presidential term, Park declared a state of national emergency, and 10 months later (October 1972) he suspended the constitution and dissolved the legislature. A new constitution, which would permit the reelection of the president for an unlimited number of six-year terms, was promulgated in December, launching the Fourth Republic.
The institutional framework of the Yushin (“Revitalization Reform”) order departed radically from the Third Republic. The National Conference for Unification (NCU) was created “to pursue peaceful unification of the fatherland.” The conference was to be a body of between 2,000 and 5,000 members who were directly elected by the voters for a six-year term. The president was the chairman of the conference. Until 1987 the NCU was charged with the power to elect the president, and under this arrangement, Park was elected without opposition in 1972 and was reelected in 1978.
Political unrest increased following the August 1973 kidnapping from Tokyo to Seoul of Kim Dae-Jung—who had been conducting an antigovernment campaign in the United States and Japan—by agents of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA; now the National Intelligence Service). From August 1978 the opposition movement became stronger. The expulsion from the National Assembly of the new NDP leader Kim Young-Sam in early October 1979 escalated what had already been growing political tensions between the government and opposition leaders during the year into a major national crisis. Antigovernment riots broke out in Pusan and Masan and were suppressed by government troops. The crisis culminated on October 26, when President Park was assassinated by Kim Jae-Kyu, his longtime friend and director of the KCIA. Prime Minister Choi Kyu-Hah became acting president under the Yushin constitution and was formally elected president in December by the NCU.
In the meantime, the country was placed under strict military rule by Gen. Chun Doo-Hwan. An armed uprising of students and other citizens in Kwangju in May 1980, calling for the full restoration of democracy, was ruthlessly suppressed by the military junta, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. That month the military did away with all trappings of civilian government, extended martial law, again banned all political activity, and closed universities and colleges.
In August 1980 Chun Doo-Hwan was elected president by the NCU. A new constitution, under which the president was limited to one seven-year term, was approved in October, ushering in the Fifth Republic. Martial law was lifted in January 1981, and in February Chun was elected president under the new constitution. As parties were again allowed to operate, a new ruling party, the Democratic Justice Party (DJP), was formed by former members of the DRP and NDP. Chun’s administration, however, had to endure a series of scandals and incidents—most notably the bombing by North Koreans in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), in October 1983 that killed several members of the South Korean government. Meanwhile, in 1980 the strongly anticommunist Ronald Reagan was elected president in the United States, ushering in closer U.S.–South Korean ties and cooler U.S.–North Korean relations.
By 1987 popular dissatisfaction with the government had become widespread. To address this crisis, Roh Tae-Woo (from 1985 the chairman of the DJP) announced a program of constitutional reforms that would restore the democratic institutions and basic civil rights that had been usurped under military rule. Chun, compelled to accept this program, oversaw the drafting of a revised constitution, which was approved by a national referendum in October. Among its principal provisions were a reduction in the presidential term from seven to five years and the direct popular election of the president. Roh, a former army general, was elected president in December and took office in February 1988. With his inauguration, a peaceful transfer of power was effected for the first time in South Korean history, and the tortuous history of the Fifth Republic came to an end.
In the much-improved political climate of the Sixth Republic, South Korea hosted the highly successful Summer Olympic Games in Seoul later that year. Roh proceeded to bring about a merger (1990) of the DJP with the Reunification Democratic Party of Kim Young-Sam and the New Democratic Republican Party of Kim Jong-P’il, who for a time had been prime minister during the Fourth Republic. The resultant Democratic Liberal Party (DLP) commanded an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly.
While it was reestablishing democracy in the domestic political arena, the Roh government initiated the so-called “northern diplomacy” policy toward the Soviet Union and its allies. These efforts brought about the establishment of diplomatic ties with Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia in 1989 and with the Soviet Union in 1990. Relations between South Korea and China improved as well, and in 1992 the two countries established full diplomatic ties. That December Kim Young-Sam was elected president on the DLP ticket, and he succeeded Roh in February 1993.
Kim, the first civilian president in more than 30 years, sought to extricate the military from power and to reassert civilian supremacy over the military. Shortly after taking office, he purged thousands of bureaucrats, military leaders, and businessmen, released thousands of political prisoners, and launched a major anticorruption initiative (notably banning bank accounts under false names). Kim’s popularity surged, but a severe economic downturn and the continued entrenchment of corruption (Kim’s own son was arrested on charges of bribery and tax evasion) had diminished his standing by the end of his term. He also oversaw a historic reform of local government. Local elections, which had been suspended indefinitely in 1961, were reinstated in limited fashion in 1991 and fully restored in 1995, allowing voters to choose governors and mayors of major cities.
During Kim’s term his two predecessors, Chun Doo-Hwan and Roh Tae-Woo, were arrested. Roh had shocked the country by admitting that he had amassed a political slush fund of some $650 million, and both men were convicted of corruption for having plotted the 1979 coup that had brought Chun to power and for treason in the massacre of protestors at Kwangju in 1980; Chun was sentenced to death and Roh to 221/2 years’ imprisonment (commuted to life imprisonment and 17 years, respectively). In addition, nine executives of South Korea’s chaebŏl (business conglomerates) were convicted of bribing Chun and Roh in return for government favours.
In December 1997 perennial opposition candidate Kim Dae-Jung was elected president of South Korea, narrowly defeating the New Korea Party (NKP; the renamed DLP) nominee. Shortly after the election, Chun and Roh were pardoned in a gesture of goodwill, and on February 25, 1998, Kim was sworn in as president. Kim implemented a so-called “sunshine” policy toward the North, which led in 2000 to a historic summit between Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and to Kim Dae-Jung’s selection as the recipient of that year’s Nobel Prize for Peace. Nevertheless, his administration was plagued by corruption scandals, and his international policies met resistance from the United States. Still, in 2002 South Korea basked in the success of the World Cup association football (soccer) finals, which it cohosted with Japan and at which its national team reached the semifinals, the first time an Asian team had advanced so far. That same year, the country also hosted the Asian Games in Pusan.
In 2003 Kim was succeeded as president by Roh Moo-Hyun of Kim’s Millennium Democratic Party. A lawyer, Roh was a strong supporter of democratic reforms and had established himself as a defender of leftist demonstrators. Roh faced intense opposition from the more conservative Grand National Party (the former NKP), and in 2004 he was impeached by the National Assembly. Roh temporarily withdrew from office while the Constitutional Court considered the charges. In parliamentary elections that year, his party captured a majority in the National Assembly; Roh was subsequently acquitted, and he resumed office. In the 2007 presidential election, the Grand National candidate, former Seoul mayor Lee Myung-Bak, won in a landslide. Legislative elections the following year gave the Grand National Party a slim majority in the National Assembly. Under its new name, Saenuri (New Frontier) Party, the ruling party retained power in the 2012 presidential election. The winning candidate, Park Geun-Hye, was the daughter of Park Chung-Hee and was the first woman to be elected president of South Korea.
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Jan 27, 2024 · In the 1950s, under President Ramon Magsaysay, the country ranked as the second richest in Asia, trailing only Japan. Notable milestones during this period include the establishment of the first mosque in Southeast Asia in 1380, the inauguration of the first bank in 1851, and the proclamation of the first republic in Asia in 1899.
Jan 23, 2022 · The First Philippine Republic was inaugurated in Malolos, Bulacan on January 23, 1899. Today, its legacy lives on through every Filipino who chooses to fight for justice and freedom just like their ancestors did 123 years ago. The Philippines is both a republic and a democracy. By definition, a republic is a form of government where governing ...
The first republic was the very short lived Republic of Ezo (now known as Hokkaido). During the Boshin war (the big battle scene shown in the “fictional but feels real The Last Samurai”) fighters ran across the sea to Ezo island and started a republic. Once the big island sorted itself out they invaded and brought it back under.
The First Philippine Republic is sometimes characterized as the first proper constitutional republic in Asia, although there were several Asian republics predating it – for example, the Mahajanapadas of ancient India, the Lanfang Republic, the Republic of Formosa, or the Republic of Ezo.
