Dr. Jose “Dodong” Gullas: Titan of Education, Journalism, and Music

During the year-long centennial celebration of the University of the Visayas, it is timely to focus on the great UV administrator who really focuses on day-to-day decisions and runs university operations, Dr. Jose “Dodong” Gullas. The President, Atty. Eduardo Gullas is respected as the elder brother, as well as Mrs. Gliceria Gullas Lucero, the eldest child of the founder, Don Vicente Gullas and Lady Josefina Rivera Gullas. But Sir Dodong makes hard decisions, signs documents, manages, plans, coordinates and controls the university operations, including its satellite units.

Sir Dodong is one very low-key, unassuming leader who talks less and achieves more, who runs UV, leads The FREEMAN, promotes arts and music, especially Cebuano music, and also remains an unassuming pillar of lay faithful's support to the Catholic Church. The chairman of the Board of Trustees of The FREEMAN, the executive vice president of UV, Sir Dodong is also a patron of arts and music. He is also a staunch supporter of the Catholic Church, especially the Archdiocese of Cebu.

This great administrator has three distinct qualities: First, he is unqualifiedly committed to his work in UV and The FREEMAN. Second, he never forgets people who are loyal to UV and the Gullas Family and also those who betray their trust. Third, Sir Dodong is a very good reader of people’s character. He discerns the motives and intentions to people around him. He understands the meaning of peoples' actions and moves. This is a very important gift that helps him succeed in managing, planning, coordinating, and controlling university operations.

Sir Dodong is a son of a well-to-do and prominent family. But like his brother, Sir Eddie, he remains humble and unassuming. He talks softly but decides and acts firmly. One trait that I admire in him is his love for the small people. When he was congressman, he passed a law that regionalized and localized the issuance of salary checks of public school teachers. I am a son of two public school and rural teachers. That law helped us a lot in managing the family's cash flow. Sir Dodong has a heart for the least, the last, and the lost. He practices his love for God by his love for the small people. He is not perfect, of course. He has his own weaknesses. But as a whole, he is really a good man, with reason, with compassion, and with care.

I cannot imagine UV and The FREEMAN without Sir Dodong. He is really the compass for integrity, the engine and the dynamo that kept these two institutions around for so long and perhaps for still a longer time to come.