Team Philippines, led by businessman Mikee Romero, won over Dubai, 13-9, in the recent Belo Cup at the Manila Polo Club in Makati. Belo Medical Group (BMG) also scored another first by formally introducing the P14-million PicoSure laser machine.

 

The afternoon event coincided with BMG’s 25th anniversary. Close to 600 of Manila’s rich and famous sipped wine and bubbly, as they braved the summer heat to cheer on Romero, owner of GlobalPort Batang Pier, and his multinational team.

 

Filipino-American Anthony Garcia was hailed most valuable player. Argentinian Niño Obregon also scored a number of goals for the Philippine team.

 

“I’m so glad we won,” said a beaming Belo. “Otherwise, the celebration would have been incomplete. But both teams played really well.”

 

Belo and daughter Cristalle Belo Henares are no strangers to horses.

 

In fact, Belo considers the Manila Polo Club, where she regularly rode horses until her early 20s, her “childhood enclave.”

 

Henares still rides horses. She even once posted a video on Instagram of her on horseback while vacationing in Brazil. But both knew nothing about organizing a polo match.

 

Instead of holding it in a hotel ballroom, PR man Joji Dingcong thought of marking BMG’s silver milestone at the historic polo club.

Grace, strength and beauty

 

“Stallions are a symbol of grace, strength and beauty,” said Dingcong. “Polo is a game of wealth. There couldn’t have been a better way to start the year than to go to the temple of wealth, which is the Manila Polo Club.”

 

Thanks to Romero’s reputation as an avid sportsman, BMG was able to realize its dream of being the country’s first beauty clinic to hold such a match.

 

Romero, through GlobalPort, negotiated for the Dubai team’s participation. BMG had less than a month to fly in players. Henares declined to reveal the event’s total price tag.

 

The polo match kicked off a series of events BMG has lined up to mark its 25th year, said Belo.

 

During her speech later in the evening, she also took pride in the fact the BMG is the first and so far only beauty clinic with the cutting-edge PicoSure machine.

 

“Both RevLite and PicoSure are made by US-based company CynoSure,” she said. “RevLite was a breakthrough in laser technology when it first came out. But PicoSure is on a whole new level. It’s 100 times faster and seven times stronger than RevLite. If you had a car then, you have a flying car now.”

 

Belo also used the occasion to donate an undisclosed sum to the families of the Fallen 44.

 

The afternoon event culminated in an evening party at the polo club’s ballroom.

 

Henares, managing director of BMG and Belo Essentials, collaborated with event stylist Barbie Pardo to transform the venue into a scene straight out of paradise, complete with lush foliage, faux apples trees and a pair of actors playing Adam and Eve.

Song numbers

 

Regine Velasquez and Billy Crawford, two of BMG’s endorsers, each did a song number. Gary Valenciano drew the loudest cheers for his cover version of Michael Bolton’s “Go the Distance” and an Earth, Wind & Fire medley.

 

Tim Yap and longtime Belo endorser Ruffa Gutierrez hosted, while Javi Martinez, Yap’s partner in the newly formed Yaparazzi Events, directed the program. Writer Garlic Garcia did the script.

 

“It may sound funny, but I now consider my daughter Cristalle as my fairy godmother,” said Belo. “Just like magic, she makes everything happen.”

 

After telling her daughter that she wanted a garden setting, Belo never attended a single meeting afterwards. Henares and her “besties,” as the proud mother described Henares’ friends, did everything.

 

Belo also looked back with fondness at her first clinic, a 40-square-meter space at Medical Towers, which her mother Nena and late father Ike bought for her while she was doing post-graduate studies at Harvard.

 

“I only wanted a 20-sqm clinic because I wasn’t sure if I’d make it,” she said. “If there was just one patient in the waiting room, the place would already look full.”

 

Instead of sticking to a plan, she followed her instincts and grew “organically.” Unlike former husband Atom Henares, also a successful businessman, Belo doesn’t “overthink things to the point of exhaustion.” But she still values Henares’ advice, and seeks it every now and then.

 

“I’m not at all strategic,” she said. “I derive ultimate satisfaction from being the first to introduce a new machine to Filipinos. That’s why I’m not a good partner. I don’t want to justify my decisions to other people every time.”

 

Belo also thrives on competition. The only thing that irritates her, she said, is when someone makes a false claim of being the first to come up with a new machine.

 

With 11 branches, including a clinic in Cebu and Davao, Belo’s closest competitors probably have a lot of catching up to do.