MANILA -- The political alliance between the Philippines and South Korea has a long tradition. During the Cold War, both countries were staunch supporters of the United States. The government in Manila was among the first to send troops to the Korean Peninsula to defend the South against the invasion from the communist North.

In today's globalized world, relations between these Asian neighbors have assumed a very different flavor characterized mainly by an enormous expansion of interactions not related to formal politics or diplomacy.

"The Philippines and Korea are linked by flows and counterflows of people," said Virginia Miralao of the Philippine Social Science Council in a study on the Korean diaspora in the Philippines.