Lee reunites with Filipino worker he helped win 1992 factory injury retrial

President Lee Jae Myung shakes hands with Ariel Galac, left, a Filipino worker Lee helped in 1992, Manila, Philippines, Wednesday. As a human rights lawyer, Lee helped Galac, who lost an arm in a factory accident in Korea and was deported without compensation, win industrial accident compensation after a retrial. Yonhap

President Lee Jae Myung met Ariel Galac, a Filipino worker he once represented as a lawyer, on Wednesday during his state visit to the Philippines.

In 1992, Galac lost an arm in a factory accident in Korea and was deported without compensation. Lee, then a human rights lawyer, helped him win recognition for medical care and industrial accident compensation through a retrial. Lee himself suffered a permanent injury to his left arm while working as a teenage laborer, after it was crushed by a factory press.

“(Back then) foreign workers injured on the job were often deported,” Lee said, adding that younger generations no longer have to face such injustice thanks to Galac’s case.

Galac said he was honored and grateful that Lee remembered him and took time to meet. Despite the accident, Galac said, he still holds fond memories of Korea and thanked Lee for helping secure a favorable outcome in his case.

Lee said he appreciated the fact that Galac still has good memories of Korea, even though he must have felt wronged.

Galac told Lee he now volunteers by advising neighbors who are preparing to work overseas. When Lee heard that Galac’s daughter, who accompanied him, works as a customs broker, he congratulated them, saying Galac had raised her well.

“As emphasized during yesterday’s summit, the governments of Korea and the Philippines will strengthen policy and institutional support to expand people-to-people exchanges and ensure that citizens of both countries can live safely in each other’s country,” presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said Wednesday.