COMMENT | A woman named Phoon Chiu Yoke used to be a kind person. She “sponsored orphans and sent money to them… she also sent money to us,” her father said. But something changed after she went to China, and when she came back to Singapore, “she was a completely different person.”

Now on the Internet, she is known as the “Badge Woman” because when a mall staff member asked her to put on a mask, she asked for the employee's “badge.”

“If you have no badge, why are you asking me to do something? Who are you representing?” she replied. She stared down at the staff member and refused to put on a mask as the laws required.

She was adamant, and the blue mask that she clutched in her hands were put into her pocket as she walked into the café.

When she was brought to court a few days later, she was again without a mask. When she saw the press photographers, she hooked the mask over only one ear. And when she left the courthouse, she made sure to take down her mask and smile widely at the cameras – mask free.

People started to realise she was a serial mask-freer. She was seen mask free at Newton Hawker Centre, Clarke Quay Central mall, and Bras Basah Complex. She does not seem to care.

Mask free and beaten up in Sarawak

If you are a mask-freer in Kuching, Sarawak, however, you would be beaten up. A few days ago, a half-drunk man went into...