PMA grad passes West Point exam

MANILA, Philippines - Twenty-year-old Don Stanley Dalisay wishes to follow in the footsteps of former President Fidel Ramos.

Dalisay said as he was growing up he had always admired Ramos, and dreamed of entering West Point and becoming a president like him one day.

Now he has realized one of his two ambitions.

Dalisay, a Philippine Military Academy (PMA) plebe and former scholar of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), is the lone Filipino student who qualified recently to enter the US military academy.

“We are very happy to know that one of our scholars made it to the West Point Academy. He is not only OWWA’s pride, he is the pride of the entire country. This is indeed good news,” OWWA chief Carmelita Dimzon said yesterday.

She said Dalisay is flying to the United States on June 26 for his four-year military scholarship grant.

Dalisay, son of a seafarer, graduated valedictorian from high school and was chosen one of 100 beneficiaries of OWWA’s Education for Development Scholarship Program (EDSP) in 2007.

He took up Bachelor of Science major in Public Health at the University of the Philippines-Manila.

Immediately after graduation, Dalisay took and passed the 2011 board examinations for medical technologists.

Realizing that he needed more than just a college degree to become the country’s next leader, Dalisay opted to enter the PMA, where he said he would learn the discipline required of a future president.

Five other Filipino students applied at West Point but only Dalisay passed.

Records show that 72 Filipinos have graduated from West Point since 1918.

Military officials said the selection for admission to the US military academy is very competitive, and is based on academic records, leadership attributes, and physical fitness.

The officials said it is also very difficult to pass the qualifying examination and interview.

Meanwhile, Dimzon said that OWWA’s scholarship program has produced many summa cum laude and magna cum laude graduates.        

For school year 2013-2014, the top 105 dependents of OWWA’s active members qualified for the EDSP administered by the Department of Science and Technology last November.

From July to September, OWWA will be accepting applicants for next school year.

OWWA also offers other scholarship degree programs such as the OFW Dependents Scholarship Program, and the Congressional Migrant Workers Scholarship Program; and short courses like the Skills Upgrading Program for Seafarers and Skills for Employment Scholarship Program.