Three-year-old Catherine Erica Buenaventura was afflicted with liver ailment since she was a baby but at a hospital bed she just played with her doll as if nothing had ever happened to her.

As Erica's doctors and parents expressed what the child had gone through, a video clip in which she was shown playing and trying to walk was shown at a news briefing that took place at The Medical City, TMC, after a successful liver transplant that was performed upon her.

The operation was something that Dr Alfredo Bengzon, president and CEO of TMC, was proud of and he called it an important achievement.

Bengzon said, "This is the first time a successful pediatric liver transplant has been performed in the Philippines by an all-Filipino medical staff."

Her uncle Jefferson Llantino had given a graft of his liver that was put in Erica's body after her entire liver was removed by an 11-member surgical team on January 7.

TMC and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, PCSO, had shouldered the P4.5-million procedure.

After the surgery, for the first eight days, the child was confined at the hospital's pediatric intensive care unit.