THE NBI yesterday filed charges against cosmetic surgeon Vicky Belo and two of her doctors for allegedly botching a surgical job to increase the size of a patient’s buttocks.
Ruel Lasala, deputy director of the National Bureau of Investigation, filed the case in Quezon City in behalf of complainant Josefina Norcio.
Norcio, 40, a businesswoman, accuses the three doctors of estafa, tax evasion, misleading advertisement, and seriously injuring her.
Ronaldo Cayetano first operated on her in 2002, followed by Francis Decangchon who cut her up again in 2005 “to correct the unevenness of her buttocks,” Norcio said.
“I feel happy and vindicated that finally, the NBI has validated what I have been saying all along, that I am a victim of the criminal practices of these quack doctors,” Norcio told reporters.
She grew more furious on learning that the NBI found traces of acrolein, a poisonous substance used to make pesticides and herbicides, on the hydrogel found on the tissue samples taken from her body, she said.
“They really wanted me dead—that’s how I feel,”
Trixie Angeles, her lawyer, said they would ask the pro-secutor to elevate the case to frustrated homicide based on the NBI’s findings.
Angeles said the Belo Medical Group continued to refuse to give them the medical records that would reveal the brand of hydrogel used on Norcio.
“We want doctor Belo as well as doctors Cayetano and Dechangchon jailed because what they did to Ms. Norcio was unforgivable—she almost died,” she said.
She wanted all of Belo’s clinics closed.
The NBI said Belo was liable for estafa “for falsely misrepresenting to [Norcio] that hydrogel is perfectly safe when in truth and in fact it is not.” She was also liable for injuring Norcio, for tax evasion for not issuing receipts, and for misleading advertising for claiming hydrogel was safe.
Norcio filed a separate complaint with the Professional Regulation Commission on Oct. 6 asking it to ban Belo and her doctors from the practice of medicine. Roy Pelovello
