Malu Fernandez does it again.
Sometime in June 2007, she wrote an article on the magazine People Asia called, "From Boracay to Greece". The article was about her trip to Greece. As if the article's tacky name-dropping and brand-whoring was not obnoxious enough, the silly woman proceeds to bash Overseas Filipino Workers in the more below-the-belt way.
She talks about hating being mistaken for a maid. She talks about how bad it was to be in economy class because her authentic expensive perfume was being overpowered by the cheap ones that the OFWs were wearing. She wrote that she wanted to slash her wrists because she was trapped in economy class with the OFWs.It was elitism at its worst. At its tacky, cringing I-can't-believe-all-the-money-you-claim-to-have-didn't-buy-you-some-actual-class worst.
Needless to say, the OFW community (and they are a force to be reckoned with, believe me you)
did not let her get away with it. By August 2007, the poor, stupid woman had been lambasted for everything -- from her elitism to her looks. The outrage from the OFW community was so strong that she was forced to write a public apology and quit her job.
You'd think she would have learned her lesson by now.
Oh well. You can train an old dog new tricks, so they say. I say, no amount of money in the world can buy a stupid person a brain.
This time, she's gunning after bloggers. In her recent article in the Manila Standard, "
The Problem with Blogging...", she applies her elitist standards to blogging. She basically says that bloggers (the regular ones, not the ones who are popular enough to feed themselves through their blogs) are slackers and losers who do not understand the
'code of ethics that govern freedom of speech'.
It's pretty hilarious to read someone who uses her mighty journalist pen simply to show everyone how famous and rich she is talk about journalism ethics. This is a 'journalist' who talks of nothing else but herself -- her fabulous life, her super
sosyal friends, her high fashion items, and just how wonderfully elite she is. It's extra funny that she attacks a medium that allows regular people (who don't have newspaper columns or the connections to have one) to be as self-centred as she is.
She talks about how anonymity affords bloggers freedom from accountability -- which is true enough. But tell that to the bloggers in Egypt and Malaysia who have been arrested by their own governments because of their blogs.
(Yeah, and my Inner Bitch reckons that all that talk about 'code of ethics' really is just about Anonymous Blogger Envy. I bet she wished she was anonymous when the OFWs wrote letters and petitions against her and campaigned to boycott her clothing brand, Tubby.)
And then, she goes much, much further than that. In that recent article, she goes on to say that blogging reflects the Filipino culture of back-stabbing. She tries to be smart by connecting that attitude to Spanish colonisation, which she critcises. But then she turns around and attacks someone for looking like an
Indio* -- in the same freaking paragraph!
Then she shifts gears and rants against anyone involved in ousting the current Philippine President. She compares that particular movement to someone who bought a green Hermes bag and wished they got the black on instead.
And then she ends with anonymous blogging again (which really proves my Anonymous Blogger Envy Theory). She ends, of course, with herself and how great she is that she's the kind of person who refuses to start World War 3 (man, Global Warming, religious fundamentalism and conservative politics will start WW3, not someone whose only talent in life is constructing grammatically-correct sentences. Talk about thinking highly of one's self), and that she would rather be in-your-face when she's being brutal.
My question really is: Why is someone like that being paid to actually publish her thoughts?
I'm all for freedom of speech but does she really need to get paid to exercise hers?
________
Indio is the derogatory term used by the Spanish colonisers for the non-caucasian people in the country. It's a racist term to the Nth degree.
