Adding html extension

Hello everyone,

After a sometime I finally created a rewrite rule that its working perfectly as its displaying my articles using this format:

http://mundoregio.com/accesando/Camaras-CCTV-para-tu-casa-o-negocio-24.html

But, I still need to fix one more thing on my index.php page where I'm calling this articles, as the link doesn't have the html extension on it.

On my index.php page I'm using this line:
<h3 class="catItemTitle"><a href="<?php echo str_replace("verArticulo.php?","",$record['_link']) ?>"><?php echo htmlencode($record['title']) ?></a></h3>

but the link gives me this page:
http://mundoregio.com/accesando/Camaras-CCTV-para-tu-casa-o-negocio-24

Without the html extension, I need to add the html extension to have the link built the way I want.

Can someone please oriented me to the right path or share the knowledge with me in order to fix this one?

Thanks in advance,

J