This is an excerpt from The Movers and Shakers feature in MEGA June 2025 issue
Everybody knows Dr. Vicki Belo to some degree. She is many things all at once: doctor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, wife, mother, and media personality. Among the greater population of the Philippines, she is known as the “Doctor to the Stars,” and a celebrity figure herself. In the field of medical aesthetics, she is the multi-awarded Founder and Medical Director of the Belo Medical Group, the first accredited ambulatory cosmetic surgicentre in the Philippines and certified by the Department of Health (DOH) and endorsed by the Department of Tourism (DOT).
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Dr. Belo is widely credited for pioneering the medical aesthetics industry in the Philippines, for “democratizing beauty” and making it available for everybody, not just those born with “good genes.” She and the Belo Medical Group introduced medical aesthetics technologies that weren’t available yet in the Philippines when she first started her practice in 1990. She introduced treatments such as the first CO2 laser for dermatology, Tumescent Liposuction, the first use of Botox and fillers for soft tissue augmentation, just to name a few. And she continues to lead the industry today, always learning and never resting on her laurels. Case in point: three days before this interview, she came from Dubai where she did a master class on anti-aging, longevity, and rejuvenating medicine.
“I’m the kind of person who loves to read journals. I love to research when I’m on the plane. I never watch movies, it’s always videos of all the surgeries, of what to learn, because I love it. I think that’s the way to keep ahead,” she says. “If you notice, a lot of people have copied the Belo playbook, and so we really have to figure out to be ahead of everybody.”
Dr. Belo points to Belo Nexa as the symbol of what she and her company believe in. “I told Hayden (her husband)—because I’m getting older and I’m really going towards the twilight of my career and he’s taking over, ‘Can you build me my dream clinic? Can you build me something that will wow everyone, foreigners, especially?’” she shares. “So he imagined what the clinic would look like in 2050 and then he built it in 2024.”
She continues, “We hit the mark, because it became a destination for foreign doctors who come to the Philippines. When they give talks to all the doctors, the showcase will always be Nexa. Even our suppliers from all over the world tell us they’ve been to so many doctors’ clinics and they’ve never seen anything like it.”
And Dr. Belo is still going, because “My dream hasn’t yet really fully come true,” she said. “I really want the Philippines to be a cosmetic surgery hub, and I’m still trying [to make it happen], even if I’m older… and I really, really love what I do.
Read more of MEGA’s Pinoy Pride Awardees in MEGA June 2025 issue now available on Readly, Magzter, Press Reader and Zinio.
Photography by JERICK SANCHEZ. Creative Direction by BRIE VENTURA. Fashion Direction by ROKO ARCEO. Fashion Associate ERICA TEROL. Editorial Assistant THESSMAR LECTURA. Photographer’s assistants KARL RIMANDO, BUDDY REYES, and DAVE ORPILLA. Makeup MAVO. Hair MITCH GALITO. Shot on Location at The Manila Peninsula.
