Erick Marco Ramos, one of only nine Filipinos who qualified for the 2010-2011 Global Undergraduates Exchange program administered by the Fulbright Commission, is also the first and only blind person to qualify for the said scholarship.
Having been born prematurely, Marco suffered from Retinopathy of Prematurity or ROP which caused him to lose vision in his right eye by age three and to progressively lose the vision in his left. Due to a rare inflammatory disease that caused partial retinal detachment in both of his eyes, Marco was almost completely blind by the time he reached his twentieth birthday.