“What are your plans for the university?” As the president of the Palawan State University, that’s the most frequently question Ramon M. Docto is asked. But what is always left out is “how can you achieve it?”
In terms of achievement, Dr. Docto achieved a lot. One of them is being the President of PSU and being a happily married man with three loving children. He is also a Registered Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Preparer of the DENR-EMB Central Office, and a former professor of MS Environmental Management at Thai Nguyen University, People’s Republic of Vietnam. He has held several administrative posts which honed his leadership skills including his immediate past position as the Vice President for External Campuses Operation.
In the academic field, Dr. Docto was noted for finishing his degrees in different universities all over the Philippines. He graduated BS General Science in Southern University, Cebu City in 1981 and finished his Master’s in Educational Administration at Palawan State University in 1994. He took his Ph. D. Environmental Science at UP Los Banos in 2003.
Behind all of these accomplishments he has done you’d wonder how he was able to attain these. Dr. Docto said that the perfect recipe to achieve your goals is to focus and trust God; Focus on what really what you want and work hard on it there might be time that you’ll encounter barkadas who go by “ride or die” or a special someone whom you’ll have special memories with. Remember these are just spices and too much spice can make the food chilly that you can’t even enjoy the flavor of your meal.
Life is about overcoming obstacles. The obstacles that you’ll encounter make you stronger when you fail and when you finally do succeed, the outcome will be more rewarding. He also said that being a leader is not about doing everything yourself. He is not a mechanical robot that is controlled to do things. He needs our understanding along with prayers to give him more strength—physically, mentally and spiritually.
Dr. Docto said that trusting God is the most important recipe in achieving your goal. Always pray for guidance and help so that you would know when to stop and listen for His direction. All of us aspire to have such trust in God, a certain faith, assurance, and peace at those times when our own world seems to crumble into pieces. We like to stare down a crisis in our lives with the same sort of confidence in God.
In terms of development, we should look out for a lot because President Docto has a lot of projects in store for the PSUans. The most prioritized is the student welfare, which is in his vision: “A proactive State University in the ASEAN region that provides excellent and relevant higher education for resilient and sustainable development”. Here are some of President Docto’s proposed plans for the university:
- Faculty development. He aims that all of PSU professors are master degree holders or PhD holders. He wants the educators to study in different schools outside Palawan to avoid inbreeding since studying in different schools can help them acquire knowledge, observe and adapt different styles of teaching that they can use back in PSU.
- Memoranda of Agreement with other universities. He gladly said that we already have plans to organize exchange students program in China. He said that we need to branch out and learn more with the help of other countries as it will expand our knowledge.
- Infrastructure. This means building more classrooms with some of them actually done while others are on progress. We also aim to have a separate building for the Registrar’s Office to make it more spacious and convenient for the students. The dormitories are now done and just waiting for the furniture to arrive. The estimated monthly payment is around 1000 pesos to 2000 pesos depending on the room type.
- Canteen Improvement. We notice that only a few students eat in our canteen. We aim to revamp it and we see to it that the foods are safe and clean compared to those outside the school. We elected new officers to handle this process and we plan to offer affordable meals to students.
- Online enrolment. We are also on the move to have online enrolment. The fiber optics which will be used for the internet connectivity is in the works to speed up the enrollment. This will reduce the long lines in enrollment which is one that concerns most the students.
These are just a few of his goals that will soon be turned into his achievements. Focus on the things you really want and each step you’ll make must be a goal itself but all of these things being said we must always remember what Henry David Thor said: “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”