This issue marks the 8th year of Positively Filipino's publication. As some of you know, there are only four of us putting this e-magazine to bed but we are supported by our writers pool of over a hundred contributors (and counting). To them and to all of you, our readers, we owe our continued existence. Thank you for sticking with us.

We begin 2022 with the continuing dissection by the former chair of the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Andres Bautista of the realities of the Philippine electoral system. For this issue, he continues debunking "the Big Lie" of 2016, which has real-life repercussions on the 2022 election.

A controversial decision by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to redesign the 1,000-peso bill by replacing the images of three WW II heroes -- Josefa Llanes Escoda, Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, and General Vicente Lim -- with the Philippine Eagle has triggered an uproar. Historical researcher and author Desiree Ann C. Benipayo makes a case for keeping the three in the 1K bill.

Aside from the martyrdom of Escoda, Abad Santos and Lim in the hands of the Japanese conquerors, they have another thing in common as history professor Jose Victor Z. Torres states. Find out more in "The Last Time They Were Seen Alive."

One of the best memoirs I've ever read on growing up a Fil-Am male is the late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Tizon's Big Little Man, published before he wrote that highly controversial essay, "My Family's Slave." Retired Philippine Ambassador Virgilio A. Reyes, a regular PF contributor, writes about Tizon's heartbreaking deep dive into the psyche of being male, gifted and brown in a society that values white the most.

New Year toasts may be over and done but a Meyer Lemon Frozen Margarita is timeless. For the Happy Home Cook, Elizabeth Ann Quirino shares her concoction.

Our Video of the Week offers a good start to the New Year: a frank, painful and ultimately inspirational TED talk by former Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach on her mental health challenges.