All about Vicki

(Second of two parts)

She was one person I vowed to myself not to like. It was in the mid-’90s and her good friend, Dr. Minguita Padilla, was having a tiff with a controversial dramatic actress. I was hosting Showbiz Lingo that time and Dr. Vicki Belo decided to arrange an interview with Dr. Padilla for Startalk, which was our rival show.

The truth is, I was only vaguely familiar with the name of Dr. Belo around that period. In time, I moved to Startalk and my then co-host, Rosanna Roces, kept greeting Dr. Belo in the show. Under my breath, I was muttering to myself: Oh, that doctor.

But what do you know? Soon, we became good friends and I came to know her better. We’ve been friends for only nine years, but her Belo Medical Group has recently just turned 20. To mark her 20th year in the business, I decided to rattle off some 20 pieces of information I discovered about Dr. Vicki Belo through our almost decade-long friendship. I’ve already enumerated the first 10 in my Tuesday column and below is the rest of the list:

11. She is not vindictive and she never gets back at those who had wronged her. It’s not her style and that is not in her person. Dr. Belo believes in karma and in divine justice. I’ve seen that work for her and it’s always to her favor in the end.

12. You can trust her with your secret, but she tells everyone (well, almost everyone) her OWN secrets.

13. Dr. Belo puts a lot of premium on honesty. She will allow you to commit mistakes, but she will forgive and forget all the wrongdoings you’ve done to her if you later admit each and every bit of it. She can never tolerate lying.

14. She will always be there for you and she’ll definitely be there when you need her most. One of the kindest deeds done to me was when she sent me medicine in the middle of the night while I was in my sickbed. It was past midnight, but she went out of her way to have somebody go to the drugstore to get me my meds.

15. She is the type to build a house for her family not only to serve as a showcase, but to serve as their home. It’s truly home sweet home. Since she has allowed me to use her Dasmariñas Village home as my halfway house, I already have an idea how she runs it. Whenever we would have dinner at her residence and I get there ahead of her, I would take a nap in one of the couches and her children would walk in and be surprised to see me there sleeping. But really, I’m low maintenance since I don’t even turn on the aircon. And I’m easy to feed. I eat what’s there.

16. Society has this notion — I’m not sure if this true or not — that those who eat their meals fast are laborers. Well, Dr. Belo eats like a stevedore. In one swoop, her din-din is gone. No, she doesn’t eat a lot (and when she does, she tells herself: “Stop na, Victoria!”). However, I’d just be into my fourth bite and she’s already done with her food. 

17. It’s no secret that she likes chocolates. Her kitchen overflows with it. One time, I saw a balikbayan box delivered to her home and it was full of chocolates that were temporarily stored under the stairs. I’m a chocoholic myself, but she is the biggest slave to chocolate of us all. She’ll skip meals to have her chocolate fix for the day. Usually, she’d put three pieces on her desk and wait for the time she couldn’t resist anymore.

18. She says thank you for the littlest thing you do for her or give her. It’s difficult to give her a present since she’s the girl who has everything. Food gifts are what she appreciates most. In the past — when I still had this source of really nice, tasty fresh spring roll, I’d always give her that since that was mostly vegetables and was basically a healthy and guilt-free dish. On a few occasions whenever I’d fly to Davao I’d always get for her a whole crate of pomelo, which she told me was her favorite diet food. These days, it’s quite difficult to give her food since she’s away on trips most of the time.

19. She treats help like family. I’ve never heard her raise her voice at the people who work for her — either in the clinic or at home. Most of them become her friends after they’ve left her service. One of Cristalle’s former nannies who is now working in London came for a visit in 2008 and Vicki treated her to dinner at the Dusit Hotel. I know this because I joined them there and saw for myself how grateful Dr. Belo is to this former employee for helping raise Cristalle well.

20. Frigidaire had become such a popular brand that fridge and refrigerator or ref (which is actually the common noun for this type of appliance) had become one and the same. Today, if you say Belo, you instantly associate it with medical beauty treatment. I now often hear people say, “Magpa-Belo ka na.” Of course, what they mean is that you should have something in your face or body fixed by a dermatologist. Although Belo had become such a popular name, I didn’t expect Vicki to be mobbed by fans like a movie superstar in Trinoma one time. Yes, she had become such a big name and she will surely have her place in medical history, specifically in the field of dermatology.