DH Model

DH Model, short for DriveEvenHarder's Model, is an economically left (but pro-market), civically libertarian, and environmentalist form of governance proposed by u/DriveEvenHarder. Its goal is achieving prosperity and emancipation for the poor and working class in the Philippines, especially those living in far-flung provincial areas. This ideology has multiple foundations (like decentralized government, LVT, workplace democracy, indigenous rights, and secularism), but it also considers specific conditions found in the Philippines, and thus the author believes it can't be applied in the same way to other countries.

DH model, rather than being a rigid system, is more like a set of values and goals that the author's ideal Philippine government should be modeled after. Below are these values.

Local Autonomy
At the core of DH Model is the belief that a decentralized government which gives great autonomy to local provinces, cities, and municipalities is what works best to secure the people's interests. The current Philippine government implements a weak shadow of this idea in the form of somewhat increasing LGU (Local Government Unit) control in local matters, but it still isn't enough.

DH Model believes that a faraway central Philippine state is a poor and inefficient judge of what most local communities in the country should do, and if left unchecked to increase its power, it will inevitably turn into a tyranny that works against the interests of remote provinces far from the national seat of power. This can already be seen in how current government blatantly prioritizes the National Capital Region and places close to it while leaving the farthest provinces undeveloped. A too-centralized government consolidates power to the seat(s) of government while sucking everything else dry, and can easily be taken over by opposing tyrannical regimes.

In opposition to this, DH Model calls for a decentralization of government by shifting the legislature to be a primarily local matter handled by the provinces and giving them even greater executive power. The different provinces would be more in control when it comes to matters including but not limited to land reform, environmental laws, workers' rights, and trade policy. The duties left to the central government in this model is running the judiciary branch, enforcing the constitution, and organizing national defense or resistance against foreign imperial ambitions.

With a decentralized state and greatly increased control by local communities, forgotten provinces can better develop and thrive as they will be run more by the people who live in them and who know the individual conditions of their own locality.

Green Geo-Distributism
Gets its name from the synthesis of Environmentalism, Georgism, and Distributism. DH model champions an anti-capitalist but free market economic system with an emphasis on the Land Value Tax, widespread redistribution of the means of production to be owned by workers, and strong environmental protections to ensure sustainability. This system is also pro-union.

In this economy, land is publicly owned, the environment is preserved and used for the good of all, and most enterprises as we know it would be replaced by democratically controlled worker co-ops. The legislature would implement aggressive anti-trust laws while taxes such as the LVT and other taxes contributed by the citizens is mostly given back to them via spending on social programs.

However, instead of nationalized industries, the state would incentivize and support co-ops that would either form around or expand to tackle areas endorsed by the state, such as healthcare, public infrastructure, and transportation. Instead of the state owning public works, those are also directly owned and operated by the people. Most of this would be carried out at the provincial level, with the national government facilitating between provinces.

DH Model believes that abandoning the short-sighted consumerist-capitalist mode of commodity production would greatly advance the cause of environmentalism and set the path for a more long-term sustainable economy. Since profit motive is not the priority of enterprise anymore, but instead addressing the needs of the public, waste would be reduced, overexploitation of resources would slow down or stop entirely, and local communities would be able to curb the current draining land use policies.

Green Geo-Distributism also reinforces local autonomy, as it enables provinces and the worker co-ops within them full control to operate public utilities to the abilities and needs of the local community, and subject to local regulations. This also encourages the workers in the co-ops to be active in politics, leading to workers' councils that campaign for and advise members of the provincial government.

This system stands as almost the complete opposite of the current system in the Philippines, which the author believes is ruining the country at an accelerated rate. At present, economic power is concentrated to a few landed gentry families who have held power since Spanish colonial times (and who now own many businesses + dominate politics through political dynasties), a few new-rich local capitalists, an obscenely wealthy group of Chinese business owners, and foreign multinational corporations. Unfortunately, these conditions make a Green Geo-Distributist system achievable only through either swift, radical reform or total revolution.

Ethnolinguistic Plurality (Or, the Protection and Autonomy of Indigenous Peoples)
The construct of the Philippines as one people with one language and one culture is largely a nationalist fiction, soaked heavily in the poison left behind by past colonial overlords. In reality, the Philippines is an archipelago in which civilization evolved in the form of small, decentralized communities, many of which had their own distinct cultures, languages, and religions, and who associated with each other as independent equals. DH Model greatly values the rights of these peoples to govern themselves and be able to live their own ways of life free from tyranny, whether that comes from foreign imperialists or a faraway central government completely out of touch with their needs. This goes for the most remote tribes in the mountains of Luzon to the fisherfolk communities in the Visayas to the Lumad peoples and Moro separatists in Mindanao.

DH Model also believes that getting rid of imperialist and capitalist notions of land will come a long way in ensuring these ethnolinguistic minorities are given their due, whether that be as constituent provinces with great local autonomy, or separate states with recognized independence.

Secularism and Progress
The Philippines is home to a 90+% Christian population, the overwhelming majority of those Roman Catholics. Under the present government which operates ineptly under the botched principles of a liberal democracy, separation of church and state is feigned, but it is largely a society where religious organizations exert great influence over the electoral process. In the case of the Iglesia ni Christo (INC), church leaders outright endorse candidates and oblige all members to vote for the same one, therefore turning the church into a non-negligible voting bloc. This results in politicians and their handlers plying the church leaders with favors (bribes) and promises to secure their members' votes. The Catholic Church, meanwhile, has helped topple a regime and frequently meddles in politics, although in a less bold-faced manner than the INC.

It's important to focus on the Catholic Church here, because they are perhaps the oldest and richest institution still currently existing in Philippine society. They gained their foothold in this country along with the Spanish colonists of the sixteenth century, and became owners of vast lands stolen from the natives. Their churches were made the center of the encommienda (colonial town), while the friars enjoyed outsized influence in society. Colonial officials, merchants, and new-rich businessmen alike all had to toe the church line lest they be sent to a backwater post (in officials' case) or get excommunicated (social pariah status). Most of the natives (called 'Indios') were to be "educated" and "civilized" by the clergy, who instilled in them a disdain for their own culture and a loyalty (or at least obedience) to the colonial government keeping them poor.

They haven't changed much, despite the Spaniards being kicked out by the Americans, the subsequent American colonization, the Japanese occupation in WW2, and the decades since then of American and capitalist subservience of the kleptocratic Philippine government. Through all those shifts in governmental power, the Catholic Church has largely retained its wealth, influence, and even most of its land. All the while, they've been preaching to the common people about the humble virtue of poverty and obedience to those who rule over them. In effect, the Catholic Church had once presided over the institution of feudalism in Spanish colonial times. Now, it presides over the institution of capitalism by keeping the poor complacent in their poverty, while also participating in the parasitic system that enforces this poverty by hoarding stolen land to get richer off of speculation.

Now armed with this context, DH Model views secularism as inevitably going hand and hand with the sweeping economic changes needed to emancipate the poor and working class people. This is a country where the electoral process is constantly undermined by religious squabbling instigated to distract the public from economics so they would keep putting conservative populists and their capitalist cronies in power. And the religious institutions have the incentive to support the capitalists who let them keep their wealth, while resisting progressive legislation that empowers groups they disapprove of.

It is for this reason that DH Model is a proponent for hard constitutional separation of church and state, as well as expanding the legal rights of marginalized groups. The current government allows verses from the Christian Bible into the constitution and civil code, while falsely insisting it affords equal rights to the other religious and nonreligious minorities as compared with Christians because there is "separation of church and state." Clearly, this is not enough to curb the clear Christian bias of the state and its institutions.

Under DH Model, such religiously motivated legislation would be subject to the scrutiny of a strictly secular constitution. For example, all people would have full reproductive rights over their bodies and all consenting adult couples would have rights to marriage, divorce, and adoption.

Foreign Policy and Anti-Imperialism
DH Model promotes strictly non-interventionist foreign policies. No entity should enforce a single form of governance everywhere, and all communities have a right to self-determination. Alliances with other nations, states, or communities are based on mutual aid and collaboration towards a shared goal, and never to impose one entity's control over another. The Philippines under DH Model would prioritize alliances with nearby nations working to shed imperialist influence and pursue greater autonomy, only intervening if 1) most citizens from the relevant territory are in favor of aid being requested and 2) most citizens in the intervening entity are in favor of aid being provided.

However, DH Model is in no way in favor of demilitarization. One of the three remaining duties of the central government, which facilitates between local governments, is the coordination and organization of local military forces. It believes that provinces should all have their own forces for the purpose of self-defense, but also have full autonomy on matters like gun ownership and other ways of arming the people. The constitution, however, would enshrine arming the people.

How to Draw

 * 1) Draw a ball.
 * 2) Draw six alternating diagonal stripes of blue (#0039a9) and red (#cd1127), starting from the top left to the bottom right.
 * 3) Draw a diagonal white (#ffffff) stripe in the middle of the ball.
 * 4) Draw three yellow (#fbd117) stars on the white stripe.
 * 5) Add the eyes.

Friends

 * [[File: Distributist.png]] [[File: Georgist.png]] [[File: Envi.png]] My parents - Great inspiration! I want to apply your lessons to improve the conditions in my country.
 * [[File: Marketsoc.png]] Market Socialism - My favorite form of socialism, always based.
 * [[File: Synd.png]] Syndicalism / [[File: AnSynd.png]] Anarcho-Syndicalism - Unions are based. I wish the Philippines had more radical leftist unions, and without leaders connected to corrupt capitalists and politicians. Liberal bourgeois politics is a reactionary disease that has poisoned unions all over the world and I hope you can overcome it soon.
 * Other [[File: Soc.png]] Socialist ideologies - You all further the cause of workers and the common people. I have great respect for what you have achieved elsewhere in the world.
 * [[File: Demcon.png]] Democratic Confederalism - I respect you for trying to adapt leftist ideas (specifically [[File: Bckchn.png]] Bookchin Communalism and [[File: Libsoc.png]] Libertarian Socialism) to match the conditions in Rojava. Fuck all the authoritarian and imperialist powers trying to impose on you; Kurds have a right to self-determination and autonomy!
 * [[File: Zapa.png]] Zapatism - I admire you for the same reasons as DemCon. Keep fighting the good fight against imperialism, Neoliberalism, economic globalization, and mafias!

Frienemies

 * [[File: MLM.png]] Marxism–Leninism–Maoism - I sympathize with the CPP's causes for fighting, but the ideology you want to implement is too authoritarian. Not to mention you admire and defend imperialist dictators. Also, things that worked in Russia and/or China may not necessarily work here. You have to consider that every country is different.
 * [[File: Muslim_2.png]] Islamic Theocracy - I sympathize with Bangsamoro and other Muslim separatists' cause for fighting, especially your hatred towards the current Philippine government. They've definitely treated you all like shit, stealing your land and purposefully diluting your population with non-Muslims, but your militias are too violent. And what's with one of their break-away factions wanting to be recognized by [[File: Jihad.png]] ISIS?! ...Once you take care of your Salafi jihadist problem, I'll support you.

Enemies

 * [[File: Lib.png]] [[File: Conlib.png]] [[File: Soclib.png]] [[File: Patcon.png]] My stupid fucking government - Marcos was overthrown to put you lot in power, but you only replaced his cronies with your own. You pretend to care about democracy unlike the dictatorship you replaced, but you sell us out to foreign capitalists. And when the hell is that land reform coming?!
 * [[File: Rpop.png]] Philippine politicians' praxis - You do nothing but lie to the people every election, prop up political dynasties, elect TV celebrities who know nothing of governance, and endlessly stall from making any real change happen. From the bottom of my heart, fuck you.
 * [[File: Neoliberal-icon.png]] Neoliberalism and [[File: Necon.png]] Neoconservatism - IMPERIALISTS. Even when you supposedly gave us our independence after WW2, you still meddle in our elections, station military troops here, and smooth the way for your corporations to exploit our resources and people.
 * [[File: Dengf.png]] Dengism - STATE CAPITALIST IMPERIALISTS. Tyranny is tyranny, let it come from where it may!