'The Vicki Belo I Know': A Son's Intimate Portrait
People ask me all the time, “what was it like growing up as the son of THE Vicki Belo?”
My answer is, “I thankfully didn’t.”
My mom only became even remotely close to a household name when I was finishing college. Before that, she was just Vicki Belo, at most known to my friends as “Quark’s hot mom.”
Vicki Belo, who would spend countless nights on duty in Makati Medical Center. Sometimes she’d bring me along, and I’d spend her free days just chilling with her in the room because she was too tired to do anything else. She’d pay me and my sister five pesos to give her “massage,” which basically meant we’d walk on her back to relieve her muscle pain.
She later spent two years studying derma in Thailand, and would visit us every weekend. After that, she started practicing dermatology, with her first clinic in Medical Tower on Herrera Street, Makati. Cristalle and I didn’t get to see our mom as often as our classmates would theirs, with their mothers very active in school events and our friend groups. But even at that early an age, I could tell she was building something.
Vicki Belo, who wanted to be everything, everywhere, all the time. Until now people marvel at her energy, watching her wake up early to do her workouts, spend the day going to and from different meetings and clinics, and close out her evenings going to various balls and engagements.
Growing up in our grandparents’ home in Tambo, Parañaque, she had a little baking company called A Taste of Heaven, and to this day I can’t imagine a better Crunch Cake. She would teach aerobics at Polo Club or Clark Hatch. She even had a small video store at one point, if I remember correctly. She was always entrepreneurial, and it was never about the money. It was always about doing something, making something of yourself and your time in this world.
The author with his mother, Vicki, and sister, Cristalle.
Vicki Belo, the rebel. She’d always get into trouble with her professors and her peers because she’d consistently challenge the norm. It’s weird imagining all the drama that surrounded her when she got her first laser. Such things shouldn’t be used in the field of dermatology, they said, and now every clinic in this country uses one.
When she started practicing cosmetic surgery, the naysayers came once again. Dermatologists shouldn’t go below the epidermis, they’d say. I dare you to drive through Edsa without seeing a single ad for a combination dermatology and cosmetic surgery clinic. And don’t even get me started on all the pushback she got about using celebrities to endorse her clinic. Such things weren’t allowed back then, and now it’s a whole industry. The attributive “trailblazer” is thrown around too much these days, but she was a real trailblazer, always questioning the norm, always fighting to make things better for patients.
Vicki Belo, a young lady navigating her way through life. I’ve witnessed my mom go through many heartbreaks, both professionally and personally. Because Cristalle and I slept in the same room as her, we were both privy to the current soundtrack of her lovelife. I’ve memorized the lyrics to the soundtrack of The Bodyguard, “I Will Always Love You” and “Since I Don’t Have You” on the bad days, “I’m Every Woman” on the good. I am one of the few who remember Toni Braxton because of the times I’ve heard “Un-break My Heart” ad nauseum. There was a month or so where, to my chagrin, she’d listen to No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” every. Single. Day. She was vulnerable, and she was never afraid to show that side to her kids. I’d stay with her every night to make her feel better, and at the age of 11 we’d talk for hours. Because of this, we’ve always had the sort of relationship where we could tell each other everything. During those days, she became more than a mother to me—she became my friend.
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To this day, I feel that I can tell her anything without fear of being judged, and occasionally, we still have those talks about relationships and dreams and how we live our lives. It’s a lesson I plan on practicing with my own child: allow your children to be there for you, both of your lives will be better for it.
My mom remarried a few years ago, and if you’ve managed to avoid social media in the last decade, you may have missed the fact that she has a young daughter now. It’s a second chance at motherhood, and this time she’s finally able to spend as much time being a parent as she wants. I think about my sister Scarlet, and the life she’s living—going to fashion weeks all around the world, having playdates with North West (!), enjoying the princess life and the fruits of all those years of hard work, being the daughter of THE Vicki Belo. I sometimes wonder if I’d prefer having had that life growing up.
But no, I wouldn’t exchange the Tambo, Parañaque days for anything; growing up raised by a mom full of energy, heart, and ambition. Her life was, and continues to be, the biggest inspiration to me.
