May Your Wishes All Come True

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We wish you a happy, healthy and bountiful 2025. May all your dreams and desires come true this coming year.

This issue marks our 12th year of publication and, as is our wont, we begin by thanking you for the support and encouragement you've given us through all these years. We are still the same group of four that ventured into the digital publication field after years of being in print media. It took quite a lot of learning and tweaking to gain confidence in this new arena. We can't really say we've mastered this; new technologies are coming up swiftly -- too swiftly -- for us to catch up. But we're still here and our goal of bringing the massive, complex Filipino diaspora together via our shared stories remains.

We hope you'll continue to be with us as we navigate the uncertain world that is upon us in 2025. Let's start our trek to the future by looking back to what we are leaving behind, what we've gone through and who we have lost in 2024.

And for a bit of whimsy, we're including some fun items from our first month of being-- January 2013.

This Week’s Stories

The Year of Breaking Up Badly by Ernesto M. Hilario

In Memoriam 2024 by Mona Lisa Yuchengco

The Most-Read Stories of 2024

Read Agains from January 2013:

“Opo Pinoy Style” Infects the Internet

Sex and the Senate by Marilen J. Danguilan

Come Join Me in Portugal by Tiago Gutierrez Marques

[Video of the Week] Chef Lord Maynard Llera

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Staff

Meet the Indipinos

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Filipino farm workers arrived in Bainbridge Island in Washington state almost eight decades ago to work in the strawberry farms. There they met and fell in love with indigenous women, berry pickers too. In the first year alone, there were 13 marriages. Their children have come to be known as Indipinos, a unique subset of the all-encompassing category, Filipino American. Indipinos in Bainbridge Island is the topic of PF's forthcoming webinar on January 19, which will also show in full the excellent documentary made by Gina Corpuz, herself an Indipino. You can register below.

The forthcoming Philippine elections in May is definitely the Big Story to follow this year. Former Commission on Elections (COMELEC) chief Andres Bautista ends his illuminating series on the Philippine electoral system this week with words of caution in "Practice Mental Hygiene for Philippine Democracy."

Many of us have no more tears to shed due to the constant, seemingly endless, news of people we know who died in the past two years. Here we list some of the more public figures who have succumbed not just to Covid-19 (and there are many of them), but also to co-morbidities and age. 

The early days of 2022 do not provide a respite. Already we have lost two prominent men of letters -- the literary giant F. Sionil Jose, 98, (eulogized here by his friend, Tokyo-based writer Amadio Arboleda) and renowned historian Dr. Samuel K. Tan, 88, (see link to a eulogy in our In The Know section). Another, the prominent lawyer Delfin Gonzalez, 107, who was the subject of our publisher Mona Lisa Yuchengco's video documentary 11 years ago.

For cold, wintry days, how about trying out this recipe for "Almost Binignit," binignit being the Cebuano version of the popular merienda fare, ginataan. Cebuana PR specialist Lorna Lardizabal Dietz shares her abridged version of this sweet delicacy for the Happy Home Cook.

Our Video of the Week is about the making of Kora's Filipinos doughnuts, a humungous hit among New Yorkers, thousands of whom have lined up for the shop's waiting list. Kora is owned and operated by Fil-Am baker/entrepreneur Kimberly Camara.

Read Again:

A Bookstore of Filipino Aspirations by Larry Ng

In The Know (Standard Edition)

Sulu’s Samuel Tan succumbs to COVID-19; leaves “a void no historian can fill”
https://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2022/01/sulus-samuel-tan-succumbs-to-covid-19-leaves-a-void-no-historian-can-fill/?fbclid=IwAR2XvxjnTL1yNpLkBDhO-pisXrh_7dfy_HTRieLM1VtnoGOnZHH-bPbooCo

The First Year of COVID: Filipinos Were Among Hardest Hit, But Hidden by Data
https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/year-one-covid-19-death-toll/the-first-year-of-covid-filipinos-were-among-hardest-hit-but-hidden-by-data/ 

30 Photos of Makati During Its Early Days
https://www.esquiremag.ph/culture/lifestyle/best-makati-photos-a00297-20200524?utm_source=Facebook-Esquire&utm_medium=Ownshare&utm_campaign=20211227-fbnp--best-makati-photos-a00297-20200524-fbold&fbclid=IwAR2hFHcxnAYQ3jN0h74A_WIESEmW_z0AE5NfqClp0UXyD0EED9JgFQiXKbQ

IN PHOTOS: This Cubao postwar home was brilliantly transformed into a boutique cinema
https://news.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/movies/01/30/21/in-photos-this-cubao-postwar-home-was-brilliantly-transformed-into-a-boutique-cinema?fbclid=IwAR0Y-F2nKIjVkhEOWD-8-7ndWy72SoNBRWUbiIRwgpIIl-B7anbRb9ha5cE

How this fruit vendor’s daughter rose to become IS Manila and Harvard scholar
https://news.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/spotlight/01/05/22/how-fruit-vendors-daughter-became-is-harvard-scholar

Sarap Filipino Bistro: ‘Many of the dishes are real showstoppers’ - restaurant review
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/jan/02/sarap-filipino-bistro-many-of-the-dishes-are-real-showstoppers---restaurant-review?fbclid=IwAR2ChFHirwsGbKfDsxYI7oR9dRaKGww7uQYo4PiCtPSpQ1rc91zNKjkIXP4

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Gemma Nemenzo

Editor, Positively Filipino