Maharlikanism Maharlikanism
Maharlikanism's Alternative to Ambisyon 2040

How to Fix the Philippines with Maharlika 2050

by Juan Icon
July 27, 2021 16 minutes  • 3282 words
Table of contents
Current Cycle Years per Cycle Social Age
Positive Warrior 12 5.5

The previous post explained the problem with the Keynesian Dutertenomics, which is embodied in the neoliberal economic plan called “Ambisyon 2040” by Arsenio Balisacan.

Society Subsidizing the Rich

The main flaw of that plan was that it catered to the merchant class of society and neglected the other 3 classes . That class is made up of business and monied interests.

Class Socratic Name Hindu Name Example
Traders Oligarchs “The Few” Vaesya Businessmen, Banks, Traders
Workers Democrats “The Many” Shudra Workers, Employees, General labor (Farm labor, fishermen, maids, etc)
Warriors Tyrants Ksattriya Government, Military, Police
Thinkers Aristocrats “The Best” Brahmin Universities, Researchers, Inventors, Religions

A society needs all 4 classes to be in good shape just as a human body needs all its organs working properly. A weakness in one organ leads to disease or even death.

With the 3 classes weakened, the Philippine economy easily collapsed after pandemic struck. To get back on its feet, it had to incur a huge Php 12 trillion debt.

The debt is in money which is the expertise of the monied interests. Thus, the solution to the problem created by the merchant class is also facilitated by that same merchant class.

It would be like getting thieves to be in charge of security in your estate. They would allow expert burglaries which can only be solved by themselves to keep themselves employed and relevant while gaining commissions from those burglars. This leads to a double revenue stream to help keep them in power for a very long time until someone can connect the dots and expose their scam.

Such a genius scheme in macroeconomics really began in the 1970s after the Nixon shock. Billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham explains:

The profit maximization doctrine of the merchant class stops growth. And so the merchant class lobbies for public debt, as Keynesian “deficit spending”. This is really paid for by the entire society.

Thus, the public subsidizes the lavish lifestyle of the overgrown merchant class.

Adam-Smith
The middle and upper classes, if they understand their own interest, should always oppose all taxes on necessities and direct taxes on the wages of labour. The final payment of such taxes all fall on themselves, with a big overcharge.
The Wealth of Nations Simplified, Book 5, Chapter 2
Adan-Smith
In her present condition, Great Britain resembles an unwholesome body with some overgrown vital parts. Her blood vessel was artificially swelled beyond natural by the industry and commerce forced to circulate in it. A small stop in that great blood-vessel will bring the most dangerous disorders on the whole political body.
The Wealth of Nations Simplified, Book 4, Chapter 7

Debt transfers the present huge burden and spreads it to the future in smaller chunks. Instead of one huge oppression now, the oppression is imposed gradually and with increasing weight.

Adam-Smith

This practice puts off the liberation of the public revenue from a fixed period to an indefinite period, never likely to come.

However, it raises more money than the old practice of anticipation.

When men became familiar with funding, it became universally preferred to anticipation during great state exigencies.

Relieving the present exigency is always the object of government. The future liberation of the public revenue they leave to the care of posterity.

The Wealth of Nations Simplified, Book 5, Chapter 3

Here, we explain the proper solution as Maharlika 2050 which puts the merchant class back in line with the other classes, specifically by:

  • overhauling Filipino Catholic-Islamic mentality into Maharlikan Science-Math thinking
  • repealing dual citizenship in order to raise revenues
  • banning crypto and NFT to reduce inflation and global warming
  • hybrid PPP to create green energy and food sovereignty
  • traditional barter trade to insulate against financial and debt crises

The Invisible Colonial Curse

The main problem of the country is poverty and inequality brought by years of colonial and neocolonial rule.

  • The colonial rule was done through Spain and its military and Church. This is the dominance of the militant class (Spanish navy) and the philosopher class (Spanish Catholic Church)
  • The neocolonial rule was done through the US and its mercant-class financial system (debt and equity-globalization)

These 2 phenomena stifle the natives (populist class) who end up as:

  • overseas slaves called OFWs (overseas Filipino workers)
  • lowly call center agents

This is very different from advanced countries which are the employers of those OFWs and call center agents.

Jagor
The populations whom the Spaniards have conyerted to Catholicism have lost all originality, all sense of nationality.
Travels in the Philippines Simplified 1869

The Maharlikan Plan

To convert a nation of slaves and employees into a respectable one of productive pioneers and innovators (and be relevant on the world stage , we change the identity of the Philippines into Maharlika .

The very first step is to establish a moral system based on constitutional virtues chosen by the people. We suggest 8 virtues:

  1. Katotohanan (Truth)
  2. Puso (Heart)
  3. Pagtitimpi (Self-control)
  4. Paggalang (Respect)
  5. Talino at Kakayahan (Intellect and Skill)
  6. Sipag at Pagkukusa (Hard work and Initiative)
  7. Bayanihan (Cooperation)
  8. Paggalang sa Kalikasan (Environmentalism)

These define what a Maharlikan is. These are not hard-coded, but can be changed every few years.

France has its own version of constitutional virtues as:

  • Liberty
  • Equality
  • Fraternity

With this new identity, the people stop being Filipinos or subjects or employees of King Philip, and become Maharlikan, an independent people with their own mind.

Lapu Lapu
Lapu Lapu is the first Western-recorded person to exhibit Maharlikan virtues. Datu Puti and the Negrito king who welcomes him are also pre-colonial examples.

These virtues can lead to a new culture and rules that can replace the morals of Spanish Catholicism and American liberalism. They will be the template for policy-changes that can be implemented until the 2050’s when our model predicts a big social change to happen.

1. Open Religious Policy (Truth)

The main obstacle to identity is the Catholic and Islamic religions that were created in Europe and Arabia, respectively. Those countries are not tropical, not archipelagos, nor have many natural disasters like Maharlika.

Moreover, those religions had a political agenda that serves the interests of Europe and Arabia. For example:

  • Christianity depicts God as a white male in the sky. This makes Christian Filipinos subconsciously think that whites are superior. This does not afflict the Muslim Filipinos who can criticize Western ideas and policies
  • Islam requires Muslims to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. This makes Muslim Filipinos spend for that trip which is a clear benefit to Saudi Arabia’s economy, and a loss to the Philippine economy because the Saudis are not obligated to visit the Philippines in return.

An open religious policy can:

  • stop overpopulation by allowing abortion and contraception
  • stop domestic violence by allowing divorce
  • reduce the incidence of terrorism like the Marawi seige
  • when combined with policy-change #6, spur critical thinking and raise the people’s intellectual level by increasing the variety of abstract cognitive experiences
  • increase productivity by replacing formal prayer (with its overhead) with informal ideation
Adam-Smith
The religious teachers’ interested zeal can be dangerous when only one sect is tolerated or when the society is divided into two or three great sects.
The Wealth of Nations Simplified, Book 5, Chapter 1

2. Single Citizenship and Leasehold (Heart)

Dual citizenship allows a person to have a safety and revenue from another country while spending it in Maharlika where prices are lower. This builds his ego over the single-citizens who have no such safety nor overseas revenue.

A clear example is how the owner of ABS-CBN disobeyed constitutional rules against foreign ownership of media.

Removing dual citizenship thus gives the government power over its own citizens. It also prevents dual citizens from owning land and other assets which inflate those prices for single citizens.

Those ex-dual citizens will then be treated as foreign permanent residents who will have to sell their assets and pay for visa renewal and other restrictions. These will lower asset prices while giving more revenue to government to pay for the huge 12 trillion peso debt. This policy thus makes the rich pay for the debt, in line with Adam Smith’s taxation maxim quoted earlier.

Dual allegiance of citizens is inimical to the national interest and shall be dealt with by law. 1987 Constitution

This policy also leads to leasehold and freehold system which is different from the private property system inherited from the US. This is important in calculating a ‘just compensation" which will not be disadvantageous to the government.

No Filipino shall establish laws on primogeniture, nor institutions restrictive of property rights.. without the consent of the Government 1899 Malolos Constitution

3. Federalism (Self-control)

The Philippines currently has a unitary form of government because it followed administrative system established by the Spanish. The problem is that Maharlika was originally a confederation and without a single ruler. This is because it is made up of many small islands and not a single land mass.

Chau Ju Kua
The Visayan settlements are along the coast are not connected by common jurisdiction. They are all independent. Chun Fan Chi Simplified

A unitary government on such a land will lead to feudalism wherein the local governments act like vassals of imperial Manila (the capital of Maharlika). An example is how warlords were allowed by the president to keep private armies .

In 2006, Mrs Arroyo issued an executive order legalising the informal private “armies” being kept by families like the Ampatuans.. legitimising their use as a means of local control. BBC News

This contributes to rent-seeking and low productivity since the people are under a leader that owes his rule to Manila instead of the locals.

Maharlikanism suggests a federation of 27 states that will spur and maximize the productivity of the people.

The federal government will then be in charge of semi-state owned corporations that will build dams, power generation, and transportation infrastructure for the states. This is because large inftrastructure often crosses state lines.

  • For example, each province should have its own powerplant run by the federal government with 10-90 to 30-70 equity split, with the larger belonging to investors who will provide the equipment and expertise. This will replace the centralized baseload configuration of the energy sector into a more diversified and independent one that can use solar, wind, geothermal, or hydro.
  • In this way, only excess capacity will be routed to the centralized Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM). In effect, this will reduce the impact of EPIRA and the influence of market forces (money) on the basic right to electricity.

4. Bicameral Parliament (Respect)

The current political system has the president and vice president elected by popular vote. Such a system favors popular people instead of skilled ones.

To solve this, we propose a modified parliamentary system where:

  • the people elect local representatives
  • those representatives elect 27 senators, as well as parliamentarians for the National Assembly
  • those senators choose a president and a vice president from among themselves

In this way, the representatives and senators can choose from themselves who would have the actual skills to lead the country.

David-Hume
The representatives will have all the legislative power. The votes on legislation will be decided by the majority. If these are equal, the senate will vote on it. Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth

5. Barter Trade (Cooperation-Bayanihan)

The federalized system will be ideal for our proposed bayanihan barter economy which is based on points as a store of value .

A point is pegged to 1 kilogram of NFA rice. This will implement Adam Smith’s grain-based valuation . This is superior to cryptocurrency and which is pegged to nothing. In fact, the chronic inflation from 2020 is caused by crypto*.

*Instead of people putting their money in the bank which the bank can lend to producers, they put their money into crypto which produces nothing and even wastes electricity. This waste and lack of production contributes to inflation.

A grain-based system will make the economy secure from inflation and financial crises, which we predict to happen in a few years. This system give importance to agriculture and will be the basis of the Maharlikan cooperative system.

According to historian Chau Ju Kua , barter was the natural commercial system in Maharlika. So far, barter is only legal in Sulu through the Mindanao Barter Council.

Chau Ju Kua
The native traders will bring those goods to other islands for barter. It will take 8-9 months for them to return. They then repay the foreign merchants with what they had obtained for the goods.
12th century Pre-colonial Philippines

This federal barter system can then be extended to foreign trade. Unknown to many, the British economist EF Schumacher proposed a similar international barter system called multilateral clearing wherein all countries act as one entity in a ‘pool’. His system was his alternative to:

  • the currency union of the EU
  • the world trade system which uses the US Dollar as an international reserve currency.

In Schumacher’s system, the exports of Country A to Country B is paid for by the fund of Country A. This fund is replenished or paid back by exports to Country A. In this way, foreign trade becomes local trade, making trade wars obsolete. It will also help countries in the pool to industrialize or ‘agriculturalize’ faster.

EF-Schumacher
Compared to free international convertibility of currencies, Pool Clearing offers one outstanding advantage: its inner mechanism overcomes temporary disequilibrium situations in international exchange by expansion instead of restriction.

The Philippines can implement multilateral clearing to export its way to pay the Covid-19 debts through the export of bananas, coconuts, and services. This will allow the government to free up its budget so that it can have money to incubate industry and continue the industrialization policies of Magsaysay and Garcia.

Bayanihan Economy

6. Open Education Policy (Intellect)

The real advancement of the US, Europe, and Singapore comes from the multicultural, harmonious nature of their society. This diversity gives their people a wide range of cognitive experiences which builds diverse pathways in their brain, allowing them a wider range of ideas and mental processes.

This is embodied by the Romans who learned of different technologies from the tribes that they conquered. Likewise, the Meiji Japanese learned by sending their intellectuals to the West to learn modern ways.

This is very different from Philippine mentality where students only want to graduate just to get it over with.

This Maharlikan policy calls for a repeal of Article 14 Section 4 Item 2 which is biased towards schools owned by religions. This repeal is consistent with the Open Religious Policy by adding schools, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Islamic, and Hindu, that are not based on Western religion or culture.

Educational institutions, other than those established by religious groups and mission boards, shall be owned solely by citizens of the Philippines or corporations or associations at least 60% of the capital of which is owned by such citizens. 1987 Constitution

The purpose is for the growth of intellect, culture, and employment.

For example, a Japanese school might set up a Philippine branch to bring elementary Japanese education to Filipinos who can eventually work in Japan armed with the proper language and cultural skills. The same is true for those who want to work in the Middle East, Hongkong, Singapore, etc.

Such schools can be subsidized by their governments. In this way, those countries share in the burden of educating the less-educated. This leads to mutual benefit by raising the quality of OFWs.

Moreover, those students can add foreign ideas and skills to enrich the Maharlikan pool of talent. This will spur innovation which will then invite foreign capital naturally. This will also lead to hybrid cultures, food, music, arts, which can be used for tourism.

At the moment, the Philippines only has Western ideas and systems as a consequence of Spanish and American colonization.

Adam-Smith
The state should make the study of science and philosophy universal Wealth of Nations, Book 5, Chapter 1

7. No Minimum Wage and Contractualization (Hard work)

Contractualization is the effect of minimum wage.

To meet the high minimum wages, businesses reduce the benefits, leading to contractualization. This is because there is not much productivity in the economy to pay for both wages and benefits.

This low productivity is in turn is caused by overpopulation:

  • Instead of one child getting money for tuition in a good school, having many children splits up the tuition as to afford only inferior schools, or even no education for the other children
  • Instead of 100,000 workers using a train meant for 100,000 passengers to get to their workplace on time, a population of 400,000 will cause a congestion in transportation, causing a delay for all of them, reducing their productivity.

This overpopulation is caused by the Roman Catholic system*. The Philippine ban on population control leads to an oversupply of Filipinos which lowers productivity and makes them cheap. This causes them to move overseas as cheap labor, called Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).

Montesquieu
The Romans therefore had laws against abortion but did not follow them. The Spirit of the Laws, Book 23, Chapter 22

*The Roman Empire relied on military dominance through its citizen-army. This is why it encouraged marriage and banned divorce among Romans and disproved of abortion. Maharlika is not an empire and so such Catholic policies are irrelevant.

Adam-Smith
Laws can never regulate wages properly, though it has often pretended to do so. The Wealth of Nations Simplified, Book 1, Chapter 8

8. Tree-Planting Employment (Environmentalism)

Lastly, the environment should be enshrined because it is the most cost effective protection against global warming and natural disasters.

Currently, Western countries advocate massive spending on green energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Such a solution really favors the finaciers and engineering companies who will prosper at the expense of taxpayers.

A more sustainable solution is to use trees themselves to reduce greenhouse gases . Trees work for free and can maintain themselves after some time.

The government can barter food and other non-monetary items in exchange for the labor for tree-planting and maintenance (such as mangroves in coastal areas). This will:

  • drive employment while providing welfare, as an alternative to ayuda and univesal basic income
  • enrich the soil naturally
  • prevent erosion and floods
  • raise land values
David-Hume
Strabo says that the northern parts of Spain are ill inhabited because of the great cold. This means that Europe is become warmer than before. This warming is caused by the cultivation of land which causes woods to be cleared. The woods formerly shaded the earth and kept the rays of the sun from penetrating to it. Our northern colonies in America become more temperate as the woods are felled. Essay 11: The Populousness Of Ancient Nations

How It Can Be Implemeted in 5 Phases

The plan can be implemented in phases, just like what we suggested for Afghanistan

Phase: Year Policy
Phase 1: 2022-2027 Dual-citizenship is abolished to get revenue to capitalize semi-state-run utilities. Open religion, math-science advocacy, tree-planting are begun
Phase 2: 2028-2033 Constitution is changed to Maharlika, Parliamentary, and Federalism. Minimum Wage and Contractualization are abolished. Barter trade and barter taxation are legalized in a few places. Foreign investment in education can begin
Phase 3: 2034-2039 Barter taxation is expanded between states and used to reforest far flung areas
Phase 4: 2040-2045 The multicultural education system starts to drive innovation. Barter is expanded overseas. Manila becomes the headquarters of a World Barter Organization
Phase 5: 2046-2051 Advanced industries like space travel can commence

By 2052, the problems of the Philippines will be finished and Maharlika will have arrived as an industrialized country or at least be closer to such a goal.