Senate probes aesthetic clinic following deaths of 2 patients

A San Juan City-based celebrity cosmetic clinic faces a possible cease-and-desist order after the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) vowed to investigate reports that its founder and lead surgeon performed simultaneous plastic procedures in a single session, which allegedly led to the deaths of two patients in 2017 and March of this year.

The development emerged during a budget hearing on Wednesday after Senator Raffy Tulfo berated the PRC for turning a deaf ear to the growing complaints against the clinic, alleging corruption within the commission.

Tulfo accused regional directors of accepting “lagay,” or bribes, in exchange for not revoking the licenses of doctors purportedly engaged in malpractice, as well as of review centers “leaking” board examination questionnaires.

“Two people were killed because of malpractice, and yet, you just sat down in your office, and you didn’t do anything. If that was me, I removed this doctor’s license so that he wouldn’t get someone killed,” Tulfo chided PRC Chairperson Charito Zamora.

“The fact that you didn't take any action in 20[1]7 even though the procedure, the system, and the policy he used for the treatment were wrong […] you and those in the PRC should take the blame,” he added.

The lawmaker was referring to a 2017 case where a 29-year-old businesswoman died from multiple organ failure after undergoing breast, buttock, and liposuction surgeries at the clinic.

Tulfo said he helped the victim's relatives file the complaint with the PRC and called for the revocation of the surgeon’s license, but the commission “did not pay attention.”

The supposed lack of action by the PRC resulted in another patient's death in March of this year, at the hands of the same surgeon.

The recent case also involved a simultaneous cosmetic procedure, which Tulfo pointed out is highly prohibited considering its perilous nature.

The Daily Tribune already reached out to the clinic for comment, but has yet to receive a response as of press time.

“If someone gets killed again by this person, the whole world will blame you… Otherwise, if you allow it, it means you’ve been bribed,” Tulfo told Zamora.

Zamora told Tulfo that the PRC will launch a motu proprio into the recent case. As for the 2017 case, it was filed with the Board of Medicine under the PRC in 2021 and remains pending there.

“Three years after? So that means you are that incompetent there at the PRC…It’s already 2026. For nine years, you should have launched even a motu proprio,” Tulfo lamented.

‘Unacceptable’

Senator Joel Villanueva, who presided over the hearing, backed Tulfo in pressing the PRC and Department of Labor and Employment to swiftly take action against the clinic to prevent a recurrence of the issue.

“This is really unacceptable for us to hear that this doctor killed two or three times in a row. What he did was very glaring,” Villanueva stressed. “If there's another victim that would come out next week, I don't think all of us here present in this room will forgive ourselves if we allow him to continue his work.”

Villanueva proposed that a preventive suspension be imposed on the surgeon immediately, while Tulfo called for a cease-and-desist order “ASAP.”

DOLE Secretary Francis Tolentino agreed with the senators that the plastic surgeon should have his license revoked.

He said the DOLE, the PRC’s mother agency, would inspect the clinic today, Wednesday, and would form a fact-finding team to investigate the clinic and the surgeon.

The DOLE will furnish the Senate with a report, and if it finds that the clinic violates provisions of the Labor Code, Tolentino assured that they will shut it down immediately.

Tulfo blamed the “corrupt” and “flawed” system in the PRC on the resident regional directors, whom he argued had spent decades in the same office and retained the same post, allowing collusion to flourish.

The PRC, he contended, has the power to reshuffle and reorganize the higher-ups but has refused to do so because of “bribes” from doctors and review centers.

Villanueva agreed that there were indeed reports that board exam questionnaires are being leaked. He said he already raised the issue several times on the plenary floor, but it still persists.

“I hope the practice of selling those questionnaires in Morayta stops...There are testimonials from previous examinees stating that some of the questions being sold in Morayta and other bookstores were actually published by no less than former board members—who are professional teachers themselves,” Villanueva stressed.

“I just want to point out that this is not something new; it is an issue that we have been aware of and needed to be looked into,” he added.