In June, columnist and lifestyle writer Malu Fernandez wrote a story titled “From Boracay to Greece,” in her column, “Fierce and Fabulous” in People Asia magazine. It began simply enough: a chatty retelling of how she spent her summer vacation.

She also adopted what’s become the boilerplate tone of the new society columnist – frank and a bit snide.

Then, on her spur-of-the-moment trip to Greece, she wrote: “To save on my ticket, I took an economy class seat on Emirates as recommended by my travel agent…. However, I forgot that the hub was in Dubai and the majority of OFWs were stationed there. The duty-free shop was overrun with Filipino workers selling cell phones and perfume. I wanted to slash my wrist at the thought of being trapped in a plane with all of them.”

On her trip home, she wrote about how she had to endure her economy seats all over, “with all these OFWs smelling of AXE and Charlie cologne.” While she said “jetting from the Aegean Sea to the Pacific may sound a bit pretentious until you wake up in economy class smelling like air freshener.”

And in her column at the broadsheet newspaper, The Manila Standard Today, she also wrote: “I flew on Emirates via Dubai, completely forgetting that Dubai is the hub for all the Filipino migrant workers. Call me whatever you like but when you are trapped in economy class that is filled to the brim with migrant workers the smell gets a little funky after nine hours of flying.”

Scanned copies of the two-page magazine article as well as links to her column in the online version of the daily erupted in cyberspace. They were circulated in emails, discussed heatedly in e-groups, and spawned a virulent backlash in hundreds of blogs.

The reactions, far-reaching, compelled a rejoinder from Fernandez. In her newspaper column, she wrote: “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 than 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 a certain target audience and if what I write offends you, just stop reading.”

Needless to say, the new salvo only served to fuel the fire. Outraged OFWs called her piece “bigotry at its purest.”

Others got personal. Wrote one on the e-group of Middle East-based Filipino journalists: “I would like to call Malou a ‘BITCH’ but it would not be appropriate for her, as bitches are female canine animals, especially a horny female dog. With the shape of her nose, she looks more like a mother pig. Therefore, an apt title would be a ‘SOW.’. But then, it would be an insult to the porcine community. So, i’ll still call her a ‘BITCH’...it sounds and fits her better.”

While much has been thrown at her in the last two months including, allegedly, death threats, little is known of her. She may have become the most hated Pinay on the planet in the last couple of months with Internet search engines returning hundreds of thousands of results when you search for “Malu Fernandez.”

So, who is she? While blogs upon blogs have painted an ugly picture of her persona, there has been no attempt to write about the true Malu. This article, however, does not attempt that. Rather, it gathers pieces of information to piece together what she is made of or where she came from or why she is the way she is.

The writer with an acerbic wit

According to Gianna Maniego, her Manila Standard Today editor, Fernandez started writing the column only in April this year, upon the invitation of their editorial board chairman Vic Agustin. And per her recollection of the two or three times that they had met, she could tell that Fernandez was “a very outspoken and opinionated lady, but funny in her own acerbic way.”

Her editor also relates that when Fernandez was first introduced to her, the writer immediately told her to “feel free to edit her columns because she tends to speak her mind and sometimes doesn’t know when to rein it in; she said that’s why she often got into trouble.”

Fernandez’s style of writing, according to the editor, is somewhat “stream of consciousness,” adding that she “writes what pops into her mind.”

“Maybe this is why she often ends up saying things that are politically incorrect,” says Maniego, adding that she suspects Fernandez “deliberately exaggerated her account in that controversial column because she thought it would be funny.”

But she is professional, her editor says, conscientious about her column and cognizant of deadlines. “In that aspect, she’s very professional,” she said.

The writer resigns

But the brouhaha took its toll. Weeks into the furor, Fernandez issued a statement announcing her resignation from Manila Standard Today and People Asia. According to Agence France Press, the newspaper’s “editorial board has been bombarded with
countless hate mails from Filipinos all over the globe since the article was published.”

She wrote in her website: “I am deeply apologetic for my insensitivity and the offensive manner in which this article was written, I hear you all and I am properly rebuked. It was truly not my intention to malign, hurt or express prejudice against OFWs.”

Fernandez, said Maniego, did not talk about the controversy when she tendered her resignation. But in one of the accompanying messages to her column, the editor says, she did apologize for any trouble she might have gotten her into.

The night Fernandez resigned, Maniego said, “She emailed me and said she submitted her resignation to Standard and then she thanked me for being accommodating to her. I replied by saying I was sorry things had to end the way they did and then I wished her good luck.”

Maniego adds that Fernandez seemed genuinely sorry in her apology. “And I really think she had no inkling she would be sparking a massive outcry with her column.”

Any lessons learned? “As for lessons, I think the people to ask here are the editors of that other publication that allowed her column to slip past, because as far as Standard is concerned, we vetted her column (with her permission) and avoided the furor by exercising our editorial prerogative. No harm, no foul,” Maniego says.

A more personal peek

“I came… I saw…I resign!!!” went a callout drawn over a photograph of Malu posted in a Pinoy blog, the owner of which avers he knows her almost all his life. “Our fathers both work in the same hospital,” said Carlos Celdran, well-known for his walking tours of Manila (www.celdrantours.blogspot.com).

The incident, he says, did not surprise him nor many who new her. He writes: “If I was an overfed, overcompensated, unwanted baby who was never as pretty or popular as her older sisters and parents, than maybe I too would end up bitter enough to demand an advance on my inheritance and spew out poisonous banter to no end. But I consider this current situation to be completely understandable in her case though. She really couldn’t help herself.”

He tells of Fernandez’s bad behavior as a result of an entire lifetime of people around her condoning it, but at the same time saying she cannot be entirely blamed for the value system that she acquired. Malu’s Friendster account says she is 41.

”She is a victim of a social/sosyal disease and the friends who indulged her,” Celdran observes. “After all, when she said her friends found her article hilarious, I believe her.”

By now, everyone must have read that Malu is said be the youngest sister of the mother of Migz Zubiri, last proclaimed senator in the May 2007 elections.

Is she back?
But we may not have heard the last of Malu Fernandez. Her column banner in the Manila Standard Today read, “Divalicious will resume next Monday”

The bloggers are back on defensive mode. “Why is she back?” one asked and wondered if the paper is “just waiting for the issue to subside then go back to business (as usual).”
Will she be back?