President Yoon Suk Yeol has conferred state awards on some 30 people in recognition of their contribution and voluntary works to help vulnerable groups. 

According to the nation's top office, Yoon presented the awards to 34 individuals during a ceremony at the top office on Friday. 

The recipients, selected from recommendations made by the public, were chosen by a government award committee.

At the ceremony, Yoon posthumously presented the Peony Medal of the Order of Civil Merit to Park Byeong-chul, the late director of Nu Park Medical Clinic in Manila.

Also known as “the Schweitzer of the Philippines,” Park provided free medical services at some 50 remote villages in the Philippines and continuously did such volunteer work while fighting cancer and liver cirrhosis. 

The Pomegranate Medal of the Order of Civil Merit was posthumously conferred to the late founder of the Korea Abraham Lincoln Society, Kwak Sung-hyun, who had donated a plot of land worth some ten billion won or around seven-point-five million dollars to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology for the advancement of science.