Ma, Pa, Graduate Nako: Guillermo Salcon's ETEEAP Journey at Saint Joseph Institute of Technology (SJIT)
There is a particular kind of joy that only shows up once, on graduation day, when years of quiet sacrifice finally turn into a diploma. Guillermo Ramos Jr. Salcon felt that joy not long ago, when he completed his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Major in Marketing Management, through the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program at Saint Joseph Institute of Technology (SJIT) in Butuan City. He did not just finish the program either. He walked away from it with the Highest Oral Revalida Rating, a Top Notcher distinction, and an Outstanding Officer Award, three honors that say a lot about how seriously he took every part of the process.
His own words, shared after the ceremony, capture the emotion behind those achievements best. “Ma, Pa, graduate nako! Naa nagid moy anak mo graduate!” It is a short line, but it carries the weight of an entire journey, one built on faith, family, and the kind of stubborn hope that refuses to quit even when the road keeps getting longer.
This is his story, and a look at what it tells us about the ETEEAP path he walked.
Here is what we will cover:
- A Diploma Well-Earned
- Recognized for the Work, Not Just the Paper
- Why ETEEAP Made Sense for Guillermo
- The People Behind His Success
- Could This Be Your Story Too?
A Diploma Well-Earned
Guillermo did not come into this program with a blank slate. Like most ETEEAP candidates, he arrived carrying years of work experience, the kind that teaches a person how to read a market, manage a budget, and make decisions when no professor is around to grade them. ETEEAP exists precisely for people like him, professionals who learned the discipline of business not from a lecture hall but from the floor of actual industry.
He has been candid that the journey was far from smooth. There were late nights spent reviewing modules after a full day of work, moments of doubt about whether the effort would pay off, and the kind of fatigue that builds slowly over months. He has said the struggle only made him stronger, and reading his story, it is easy to believe him. Anyone who has tried to study while holding down a job and supporting a family knows that kind of stamina does not come from nowhere.
What makes his story worth telling on this site is not just the emotion in it, though there is plenty. It is also a reminder of how the program actually works in practice, something we explain in more detail in our guide on who qualifies for ETEEAP. Candidates need to be at least 23 years old, have finished secondary education, and carry at least five cumulative years of work experience related to the degree they are pursuing. Guillermo’s marketing background lined up squarely with the BSBA Marketing Management track he ultimately earned.
Recognized for the Work, Not Just the Paper
It is one thing to complete ETEEAP. It is another to come out of it as one of the strongest candidates in your batch, and that is exactly what happened to Guillermo. His Highest Oral Revalida Rating points to how he handled the oral defense, the stage of the assessment where a panel of internal and external assessors sits a candidate down and probes their knowledge, their decision making, and their grasp of the field they are claiming expertise in. It is widely considered the most nerve-wracking part of the entire process, and coming out of it with the highest rating in his group is no small feat.
His Top Notcher distinction tells a similar story from a different angle, suggesting his overall performance across the program’s assessments, from portfolio review to written examinations, stood out against the rest of his cohort. And the Outstanding Officer Award speaks to something beyond academics entirely. It suggests that within his ETEEAP batch, Guillermo did not just study quietly on the side. He took on a leadership role among his peers, the kind of responsibility that mirrors exactly the supervisory and decision-making experience the program is designed to recognize in the first place.
Taken together, these honors reinforce something worth remembering about ETEEAP. The program is not handing out degrees as a formality. It is built around rigorous, competency-based assessment, and candidates who put in real effort, the way Guillermo did, get to walk away with proof of that on top of the diploma itself.
Why ETEEAP Made Sense for Guillermo
Traditional college takes years of full-time attendance, something that is simply not realistic for someone already supporting themselves or a family through work. ETEEAP flips that model. Instead of sitting through four years of lectures, candidates go through a structured assessment process where their existing knowledge, skills, and work history are evaluated against the learning outcomes of the degree program.
At SJIT, that meant working with the College of Business and Information Technology and the dedicated ETEEAP office, where a panel of internal and external assessors reviewed his portfolio, his employment record, and his demonstrated competencies in marketing management. Where gaps existed between his experience and the formal curriculum, he completed competency enrichment coursework to close them, the same kind of bridging process described in the program’s implementing rules.
It is worth noting that not every school in the country can offer this. Only institutions specifically deputized by the Commission on Higher Education are authorized to grant degrees through ETEEAP, and SJIT is one of the schools listed in our directory of accredited ETEEAP schools. If you are weighing your own options, that directory is a good starting point, since it tells you which institutions currently hold valid authority to run the program.
The People Behind His Success
Reading Guillermo’s own account of his graduation, one thing stands out immediately. He did not finish this alone, and he made a point of saying so.
He credited Dean Dr. Josefa M. Canoy and a long roster of professors at SJIT for their patience and for pushing the cohort through difficult lessons without letting anyone give up. He thanked the Registrar’s Office staff for keeping his records straight through the entire process, no small task when an ETEEAP application involves a thick stack of certificates, service records, and supporting documents. He also singled out his ETEEAP classmates, particularly a group he called Team Pasiatab, for the financial help, the encouragement, and the late-night support that got him through the rough patches.
Family came up again and again in his message, described as his greatest source of strength, the people whose sacrifices made his pursuit of a degree possible in the first place. That part of his story will sound familiar to a lot of working Filipinos chasing a diploma later in life. The decision to enroll rarely affects just one person. It usually involves a household quietly rearranging itself so that one member can finish what they started years ago.
If his story resonates with you, you are not alone. Our success stories section is full of similar accounts from professionals across different industries, all of whom walked a version of this same road.
Could This Be Your Story Too?
Guillermo closed his graduation message by calling it the beginning of a new chapter rather than the end of one. That is probably the right way to think about an ETEEAP diploma, awards and all. It does not erase the years that came before it. It just gives them a name that the rest of the world recognizes, sometimes with a little extra recognition attached.
If you have spent years building real skills on the job but never got the chance to finish a degree, his story is a useful reminder that the door is still open, and that doing well in the program is entirely possible even while juggling work and family. Start by checking your own eligibility on our ETEEAP eligibility guide, browse the list of authorized schools in our accredited schools directory, and if you want a fuller sense of what the assessment process and costs look like before you commit, our ETEEAP guides section has detailed breakdowns to help you plan ahead.
Every ETEEAP graduate has their own version of “Ma, Pa, graduate nako.” Yours might still be a few steps away, but stories like Guillermo’s are proof that the distance is not as far as it might feel right now, and that it is entirely possible to come out the other side with honors to show for it.