I am Asian. Yes, I have heard that White teachers are preferred, but the law of averages dictates that most of the English teachers here in the Philippines teaching Koreans are Filipinos.
Yes, Jon, I have heard that issue about respect. But what strikes me is that they have no trouble with older professors in the colleges they attend. Perhaps they want their English teachers to be 'buds'. This personal belief is borne out by the fact that many 'sessions' of some (not all) of these English centers in the Philippines consists of the teacher taking their students to malls and bars to learn English. (There are other less savory stories, too, but that's already in the realm of gossip.) And from my research, Koreans have difficulty regarding an older person as a friend.
What is sad about this is that as my students in my all-too-brief substitute classes will tell you, I am one of those 'popular' teachers, if I may be allowed to toot my own horn.
I don't have a Masters degree. As I understand it, my Diplomate in Teaching is somewhere between a Bachelor's Degree and a Masters. I have been applying at various high schools with no success. ***, I've applied at other things, with similar results.