▪ The patriots and veterans affairs budget has been increasing recently, despite relatively slow growth.

▪ As of June 2025, only 5 out of 18,258 independence patriots are still alive, and their descendants and families are also aging.

▪ For independence patriots to be respected as models of patriotism for their sacrifices and contributions, they and their families and descendants must receive substantial honor.

▪ The following examines recent trends in parliamentary discussions on improvement tasks regarding honor for independence patriots, focusing on budget and account settlement reviews, government audits, and bill reviews, and aims to derive implications.

▪ The Project Fund for the Patriotic Martyrs and Patriots (hereinafter “Patriots Fund”), established to carry out support projects for independence patriots and their families, relies primarily on general account transfers and proceeds from the sale of pro-Japanese properties, but concerns about the fund’s financial soundness have recently been raised.

▪ The National Assembly has been discussing ensuring the soundness and sustainability of the Patriots Fund by securing independent resources via actively discovering and selling pro-Japanese properties and restructuring project expenditure sources.

▪ Due to the MPVA's relatively poor recent performance in discovering and honoring independence patriots, the government must actively discover and support eligible recipients.

▪ Medals often cannot be awarded despite decisions to honor independence patriots due to an inability to confirm descendants.

▪ The National Assembly has been conducting various discussions to more broadly discover eligible recipients, including strengthening independence patriot discovery projects, expanding the scope of independence patriot descendants, and initiating descendant-finding projects.

▪ The Independence Patriots Act stipulates various forms of honor for independence patriots and their families, including not only financial support but also medical and elderly care support.

▪ The honor benefits must be continuously tailored considering the difficulties that independence patriots and their families may face, such as aging.

▪ The National Assembly has been discussing strengthening medical support, including expanding medical institutions providing fee discounts, increasing fee reduction rates, and expanding veterans nursing homes.

▪ The National Assembly has continuously raised the need for institutional improvements regarding the relationship between veterans benefit payments and other social welfare systems.

▪ To ensure that independence patriots receive substantial honors, establishing a stable financial base and increasing efforts to actively discover independence patriots is essential.

▪ Honor policies need to be designed and supplemented to carefully reflect the life-cycle welfare needs of independence patriots and their families and to align with changing societal environments.

▪ To achieve this, the government must actively improve institutions and implement policies, and the National Assembly and the public should provide continuous support reflecting on the meaning of liberation and remembering the dedication and sacrifice of independence patriots.