The article which has brewed a storm amongst Filipino OFWs appears as an attachment to this. I'll leave it to you if you think this was written in the writer's supposed 'acerbic' style, or whether it does in fact spew of bigotry and nouveau-richeness.
Here is what one blogger has to say about it. Have a look at the article and decide for yourself.  August 19th, 2007 A considerable buzz in the Pinoy blogging world has formed around the statements of Manila Standard high society columnist Malu Fernandez in her article “Are you a stinky linky? Or do you smell like a divine divalicious babe?” the most derogatory of which are as follows: - However I forgot that the hub was in Dubai and the majority of the OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) were stationed there. The duty-free shop was overrun with Filipino workers selling cell phones and perfume. Meanwhile, I wanted to slash my wrist at the thought of being trapped in a plane with all of them.
- While I was on the plane (where the seats were so small I had bruises on my legs), my only consolation was the entertainment on the small flat screen in front of me. But it was busted, so I heaved a sigh, popped my sleeping pills and dozed off to the sounds of gum chewing and endless yelling of “HOY! Kumusta ka na? At taga sann ka? Domestic helper ka rin ba?” Translation: “Hey there? Where are you from? Are you a domestic helper as well?” I though I had died and God had sent me to my very own private hell.
- On my way back, I had to bravely take the economy flight once more. This time I had already resigned myself to being trapped like a sardine in a sardine can with all these OFWs smelling of AXE and Charlie cologne while Jo Malone evaporated into thin air.
- All in all, it’s been a pretty good summer. Jetting from the Aegean Sea to the Pacific may sound a bit pretentious until you wake up in economy class smelling like air freshener.
As expected, the noise generated from Marlu’s offensive statements was unflattering to say the least. Complaints were sent to her directly via email and blog entries such as the one you are reading right now circulated. However, instead of issuing an apology for her bigoted and shameful piece of writing, the reprehensibly Malu Fernandez decided to shed more of her stench and rationalized her conceited self in another pathetic article titled “Am I being a diva? Or do you lack common sense?” which concludes: As I type this, I’d like you to know that it’s not about whining, complaining and bitching but just stating the facts. Just recently, I wrote a funny article in my magazine column and my friends thought it was hilarious. It was humorous and quite tongue-in-cheek, or at least I thought so, until the magazine got a few e-mails from people who didn’t get the meaning of my acerbic wit. The bottom line was just that I had offended the reader’s socioeconomic background. If any of these people actually read anything thicker then a magazine they would find it very funny. Most people don’t get the fact that they need bitches like me to shake up their world, otherwise their lives would be boring and mediocre. I obviously write for the a certain target audience and if what I write offends you, just stop reading. Although it may sound elitist to you the fact is this country is built on the foundation of haves, have-nots and wannabes. One group will never get the culture of the other. Although I could mention that it is easier to understand someone who has a lower socioeconomic background that would entail a whole other page and frankly I don’t want to be someone to bridge the gap between socioeconomic classes. I leave that to the politicians in my family who believe they can actually help. Now I seriously ask you, am I being a diva or are people around me just lacking in common sense? Perhaps it’s a little of both!
Duh! I read a lot of things that are way thicker than magazines but I don’t find her self-absorbed glib funny at all. This Malu is simply impossible and I am sad to say that it’s exactly because of people like her and others from her elite social class that conditions in our country hasn’t improved through the decades. That’s exactly why our fellow Filipinos are heading abroad to find work, children have been dropping out of school, people are going hungry, activists have been disappearing, and soldiers are being slaughtered in Basilan and Sulu. But I will not waste more of my energy on this issue lest I end up with a bad case of high blood this early. Instead, I’m enjoining everyone to support the Tingong.com campaign to exorcize Malu Fernandz from the papers she works for. Also, here’s a fitting rejoinder of the self-proclaimed diva from the same blog: The People Asia article of Malu Fernandez is based on prejudice and discrimination on the belief that social or economic status determines a person’s worth. And that just because one perceives himself or herself as being in the higher socioeconomic class, gives that person the right to speak with great and utter disrespect, intolerance, discrimination, and bigotry for her own fellow countrymen… Malu Fernandez’s contention that no one gets her “acerbic wit” is maybe why she remains clueless. Any sane and logical person would not be able to understand any statement if it is senseless and illogical. The fact that she thinks this sort of writing is witty is something that leaves this reader scratching his head. The article comes from the writing of an individual, whom I feel must be a nitwit herself.
 | Thanks for calling this to our attention. I joined in the efforts to exorcize her already. :) |
 | pigtales wrote on Aug 20, '07, edited on Aug 20, '07  Thanks for calling this to our attention. I joined in the efforts to exorcize her already. :)  :) I mean, 'divas' I can take - they're a source of entertainment. But crassiness, to my mind, that is something layers of Prada or what-have-you cannot hide. :) Yun lang! |
 | Thanks for taking interest in this controversy and for reposting my blog entry as well. :)
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 | malu who? she's not worth my time. =D |
 | she should go back to psycho club where she belongs were she can bitch everyone!! |
 | MALU FERNANDEZ IS NOTHING BUT A BITCH.... A PIG WHO DESERVES TO BE EATEN BY THE HUNGRY HYENAS... ON SECOND THOUGHT HYENAS WON'T EAT HER... SHE WILL DIE AND ROT AND NOT EVEN A SCUMBAG WOULD LIKE TO BE WITH HER. |
 | One more thing..PUNTAHAN nyo ang website ni Amy Chua (Professor sa Yale)(non Pinoy) nag-publish ng libro...kung papaano nya LAITIN at INSULTOHIN ang mga Pilipinos.read EXCERPTS from her book talking about the Pinoys na puros mga KATULONG lang daw at MADUDUMI.Pag nabasa mo na ito.Then I-SHARE mo then sa iba.
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Comment deleted at the request of the thread owner. Comment deleted at the request of the author.  | hindi ako nagagalit sa kanya. hindi rin ako naiinis sa kanya. nandidiri ako. ikinahihiya ko sya. itinatakwil ko sya bilang pilipino. hindi kayang takpan ng mamahalin nyang pabango, at ng 17 kgs na make-up ang kapangitan ng pag-iisip nya. |
 | bluynge wrote on Aug 25, '07, edited on Aug 25, '07 i pity this pathetic self-indulging PIG!! i couldn't take it how a person like this is even allowed to write in the glossy pages of nothing less than PEOPLE ASIA magazine!! it looks like she was just writing a blog for her own social circle to enjoy. doesn't she know how we Filipinos are being discriminated all over the world by other nationalities & now this? A fellow Filipino degrading her own skin.... if you are so F**king rich, why do you even bother to work, hell you cant even write!!!...? KARMA's a BITCH.... yun lng.... you cant bring your money or your 17kgs of make up & accessories to HELL!!! (damn!! you need all that make up everyday? you are worse than a corpse!!) |
 | There are so many Filipinos, even like those who are below the middle-class status, who are like Malu Fernandez. Our soap operas are infested with "matarays" bullying the underdog. This reflects our society and indeed it stinks. Don't forget that Miriam Defensor-Santiago was once tactless, too, towards those who she found less articulate. Our schools, especially those for the rich, should teach children proper values and one is: Love your neighbour as yourself. |
Comment deleted at the request of the author.  | hey malou, you said to save fare, you got the economy class, well what do you expect there? i myself take the economy class and i have no complains with the fellow OFW passengers but i do have some for the flight attendants who act like you and behave like you. these flight attendants ACT like they wish they've been assigned somewhere else than the economy class. |
 | “Responses to an OFW-Basher”
By Jerick T Aguilar
After shamelessly writing about her summer trip to Boracay and Greece in the June 2007 issue of People Asia magazine, this columnist was found guilty of character assassination of our overseas Filipino domestic helpers regardless of the fact that they have never wronged her, except – in her opinion – for being on the same economy flight that everyone is entitled to. As a writer and traveler myself, please find below my notes on some of the things she wrote. I may also be guilty of character assassination but at least mine is not baseless and I think of this more as defending our fellow “kababayans” working abroad.
“But I was too ashamed to ditch my friends and forego the huge amount I already paid for my share of the villa.” – Outright pretentious! People rent and share villas in Boracay to save on expensive hotel charges per night so writing that she paid a “huge amount” is plainly preposterous!
“Meanwhile, when all of this was going on, I was on the cell phone …” – Proper English writing uses the conjunction “while” when it is followed by the progressive (this case in the past) and interrupted by the simple tense – so “while all of this was going on, I was …” – I thought a columnist for a magazine (and newspaper) would have a knowledge of English much better than a domestic helper’s!
“Ron is my travel buddy … so between his schedule and mine, the logistics are a nightmare.” – “Logistics” is a non-countable noun and, hence, is always followed by a singular verb – so “… logistics is a nightmare.” Ditto!
“Emirates had won best economy class and some award.” – “Award”, on the other hand, is a countable noun (i.e. it has singular and plural forms) and the modifier “some” means more than one – so “… some awards.” – My, oh my! Our housemaid even knows better English than her!
“I forgot that the hub was in Dubai and the majority of OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) were stationed there.” – Duh?!? Majority of OFWs are in Saudi Arabia, unless she doesn’t know what the word “majority” means. And another duh! To be “stationed” means to stay in one place – it’s obvious that our OFWs don’t just stay there, she was with them while traveling back to the Philippines.
“Meanwhile, I wanted to slash my wrist at the thought of being trapped in a plane with all of them.” – Okay, a plane is a form of public transportation so the preposition “on” instead of “in” is used (e.g. on a bus, on a train, etc.) so “… trapped on a plane …” Yeah, she should’ve slashed her wrist in order to prevent writing more grammatical mistakes! (I hope her readers do not know that she is Filipino! Nakakahiya kung ganoon! – Sorry but the English translation does not suffice!)
“… I would never risk losing if my luggage ended up in the middle of the Sahara desert.” – Her plane took off from Dubai then landed in Athens where the flight plan is northeast of the Sahara desert, unless there was a stopover in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Now is she really a traveler or was it just her first time to travel?…
“… the seats were so small I had bruises …” – Okay, didn’t she mention that Emirates had won best economy class? So I wonder if the seats were so small or she was simply so big?
“Domestic helper ka rin ba?” – She wrote this question as if she overheard it while dozing off. I bet she was actually asked this question. I mean, I would whether or not I were a domestic helper given her fashion sense in the pictures (not at all to demean the clothing style of our domestic helpers but one cannot really differentiate hers from theirs).
“… the weather report on CNN … was wrong because it was still winter.” – Hold on, summer in the Philippines from April to June is already spring in Europe. And even if the European winter in March extended till April, Greece is in the Mediterranean so it would’ve already been warm by then. So was it really a cold winter while she was there or she just wanted to impress her readers by mentioning the word “throw” as a noun and not as the usual verb (and by wearing it to look less fat in the picture)?
“I adamantly wanted to go to Santorini … but due to time constraints, we were unable to go.” – Talk about being pretentious again! She intentionally forgot to mention “money” as another constraint! Didn’t she just write that she had to fly economy?
“I guess God was watching out for us.” – And now she thinks God was after writing that God had sent her to her own private hell being on a plane with “those domestics”. One of the rules of journalism is to be consistent (aside from having perfect English, of course!) so I guess she is the exception.
“This time I had already resigned myself to being trapped like a sardine in a sardine can …” – Another cardinal rule of journalism is to avoid redundancy so a “fish” in a sardine can sounds much better. I don’t think she’s a traveler, I don’ think she’s a journalist either… What is she then? An abomination?
“… with all these OFWs smelling of AXE and Charlie cologne while my Jo Malone evaporated into thin air.” – Interesting how she made reference to Jo Malone in which a perfume wardrobe costs more than $1,000 yet she had to take the economy flight to Athens and back…
“But for a couple of weeks, I had the great escape …” – What was that again? A “couple of weeks” when she wrote beforehand of her “time constraints”? Greece is not China so a visit to Santorini from Athens can be squeezed even within a week of staying there. And before that, she wrote “Pick a country!” as if she can go anywhere she wants to. But she ended up saving on her plane ticket only to be “trapped” with OFWs and “smelling like air freshener”. She is the height of pretension indeed!
Three things to my “supposed” fellow writer and traveler – first off, if you have to write something in English, do not forget the simple rules of grammar so you do not cause intellectual harm to the people reading your article. Secondly, if you do not have money to pay for a business class fare, then don’t complain if you are surrounded by OFWs who can only afford an economy flight. As a final note, I suggest you thank these OFWs instead of demeaning them! If it weren’t for the billions of foreign currency remittances that our country regularly receives from them, the instability and depreciation of the peso-dollar exchange rate would’ve prohibited you from traveling to Greece in the first place (and buying that Jo Malone, assuming you already did)! |
Comment deleted at the request of the thread owner. Comment deleted at the request of the author.  | I'm appalled with any publication that allow such pretentious sarcasm to be seen by the public. I'm also very disturbed to see how inordinate emphasis on freedom of speech can be licentious when it is not tempered with responsibility. What a bloody shame! It's also sad to see that a writer with such pedigree can act like Rizal's Dona Consolacion. |
 | another case of cash not making up for crass.
and not at all original - tryin to be the queen of mean at the expense of the poor struggling masses who actually carry the Philippine economy on their backs!
this rich, fat, coddled Filipina brings shame to our country.
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| I stand corrected. I'll have to brush up on my Filipino literature! |
 | Pity the woman!! If you look like she does she needs to carry over 17 kilos of make up and it still does not help! Dont let the ramblings of one ugly, overweight, ignorant woman get to you! |
Comment deleted at the request of the thread owner. Comment deleted at the request of the thread owner. Comment deleted at the request of the author. Comment deleted at the request of the author. | |
