See clearly, live fully: A new era of minimally invasive eye surgery in the Philippines

Some Filipinos who dreamed of life without glasses or contact lenses hesitated at the final step: LASIK. Not because they didn't long to wake up to a clear sunrise or move through their day without the fog of poor eyesight, but because of a quiet fear, which is cutting into the eye.

- BY JASMINE TUAÑO

Traditional LASIK requires creating a flap in the cornea, a process that, while effective, leaves a permanent incision. For people with active lifestyles runners, cyclists, martial art ists, even parents chasing after toddlers, that lingering risk of complications has been enough to delay the dream.

But now, the horizon has shifted. A new wave of eye surgery is here, one that's gentler, faster, and built for how we live today. Fatima University Medical Center (FUMC) in Antipolo has brought the ZEISS VISUMAX 800 with SMILE Pro technology to the Philippines, marking a breakthrough not just in vision correction, but in quality of life.

How the ZEISS SMILE Pro changes the game

SMILE stands for Small Incision Lenticule Extraction, a minimally invasive procedure designed to correct nearsightedness and astigmatism. It side steps the need for a corneal flap entirely. Instead of a large cut, the ZEISS VISUMAX 800 laser makes a precise, micro-incision through which a tiny disc-shaped piece of tissue (called a lenticule) is removed. That's all it takes to reshape the cornea and correct the vision.