20/09/2026
'I REAPPLIED... THINKING TO MYSELF THAT IT WAS MY LAST CHANCE. REGARDLESS, GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY ACCEPTED ME.'
Growing up Deaf, Raphael "Rafa" Vergel de Dios Domingo didn't always see a wide horizon of career possibilities ahead of them. In their younger years, Rafa imagined they might eventually work as a janitor or a computer operator — not because those were dreams, but because those were the jobs they'd actually seen Deaf college graduates land. At the time, that felt like the full extent of what was possible.
Education slowly began to shift that picture.
Through scholarships and study grants, Rafa continued their studies at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), first earning a Certificate in Bookkeeping in 1996 before completing a Bachelor in Applied Deaf Studies in 2010. Two years later, Rafa earned a Master of Arts in International Affairs, with a concentration in comparative and international disability policy, from American University in Washington, D.C.
From there, Rafa set their sights on something even bigger — a doctorate in Linguistics at Gallaudet University, one of the world's most prominent universities dedicated exclusively to Deaf students.
The road to get there wasn't a straight one. "I applied for the Gallaudet-Nippon World Deaf Leadership Scholarship program twice but failed both times," Rafa shared in an email interview with the DLS-CSB School of Deaf Education and Applied Studies (Benilde SDEAS) on June 13, 2022. "I reapplied for the scholarship program one final time, thinking to myself that it was my last chance. Regardless, Gallaudet University accepted me."
That third attempt, made in 2017, finally paid off — Rafa was selected as a World Deaf Leadership (WDL) scholar, becoming only the second Filipino ever accepted into the program, which aims to empower Deaf and hard-of-hearing leaders from developing nations. The scholarship, funded by the Nippon Foundation in Tokyo, covered Rafa's full tuition and other expenses, allowing them to pursue postgraduate studies in linguistics alongside research interests including Filipino Sign Language (FSL) documentation, Deaf education, and human rights.
Even with the scholarship secured, the challenges didn't disappear. "My Ph.D. journey was arduous because the linguistic jargons and academic American Sign Language were too much for me. I felt helpless and unsure how to seek support, but some of my classmates volunteered to help and urged me to join their study group," Rafa recalled.
In 2022, Rafa earned a PhD in Linguistics from Gallaudet University. Gallaudet's Office of International Affairs recognized them as the first PhD recipient of its Nippon-funded World Deaf Leadership scholarship program, while DLS-CSB recognized them as the first Deaf Filipino doctorate degree-holder.
Today, Rafa heads the Deaf Heritage and Filipino Sign Language Studies Unit at Benilde's Center for Education and Advancement of the Deaf (CEAD), and has co-founded the Philippine Federation of the Deaf, holding several positions across Deaf non-government organizations and government agencies over the years. DLS-CSB has shared that Rafa intends to return to the Philippines soon to continue research on Filipino Sign Language.
Rafa, who identifies as non-binary and uses the pronoun "siya," as signed in Filipino Sign Language, has turned a childhood of narrow expectations into a career built on breaking exactly those kinds of limits — for themselves, and for the Deaf community they continue to serve.
