Lyceum’s performance at the Worlds

        NOTE: THIS POST IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION

 The Lyceum contingent: Suzy, me and Cheenee during the pre-opening party

I know, I know. It’s been days since the 28th World Universities Debate Championship (WUDC/ Worlds) came to a close in Pattaya, Thailand. But I still have the hangover and I haven’t posted anything about it yet.

I’m planning to do at least three blogposts about the Worlds: first installment would be about my team’s performance, second would be on how the Pinoys fared and third would be on the performance of the Japanese debaters.

Why too much Worlds post? Well, number one, I’m an amateur debater and a first-timer at Worlds. And what do second-rate people do? Talk about small things all the time because these small things are big achievements for them. Yes, joining WUDC is already an achievement for me. Number two, mom and dad do read my blog from Japan and they certainly would want to know what happened to the money they sent me for my Thailand trip. Well, here’s what happened: I spent it shopping. Buying omiage, that is. There.

Anyway, back to the blog post.

THE TEAM

Lyceum A

Suzy is the captain of our two-person team. She’s been debating for four years now, and has served the Lyceum Debate Society first as Keeper of the Purse (treasurer) and now as Grand Chancellor (president). She’s appeared on ANC’s Square Off with Barny Rivera and has broken into the octofinals of the National Debate Championship (NDC) twice. She’s also been to several other tournaments including the Asian Universities Debate Championship (AUDC) in 2006 in Manila, the Philippine Inter-Collegiate Debate Championship (PIDC) and its predecessor, the Inquirer Inter-Collegeiate Debate Championship (IIDC) and several other local inter-varsities (IVs). She’s taking up AB Legal Studies and is now on her fourth year. She plans to pursue Master’s Degree in International Relations or Public Policy abroad, most probably in the National University of Singapore.

  Suzy

The other half of the team would be me. Yep, me. I started debating in high school under the Oxford-Oregon and Lincoln-Douglas formats, but I wasn’t really a serious debater then and I had never joined any inter-school debating tournament until after I entered college. I adjudicated in the Inquirer Inter-School Debate Championship (IISDC) in Ateneo in 2005 and debated in several competitions including the IIDC, CSB IVs, UST IVs and the Manila AUDC. All these tourneys used the Asian Parliamentary style (Worlds uses the British Parliamentary). Although I came close to breaking in the CSB and UST Ivs, I never had the chance of actually breaking in any debating tourney, which means that I still am a second-rate debater. I stopped debating last year but I adjudicated in the ICU Tourney in Tokyo, joined some practices of Aoyama Gakuin University Debate Club in Yokohama and helped in the 2007 recruitment of the Sophia Debate Society in Tokyo. I went back into full-time debating last October. This year’s Worlds is my first-ever BritParl tourney.

  me

Our adjudicator is Cheeney, another International Relations student. Like Suzy, she has broken into the octo’s of the NDC in Baguio last year. She adjudicated in the IISDC and several IVs, and debated in the Manila AUDC, IIDC, PIDC and NDC.

(Sorry, Cheney. Wasn’t able to take a pic of you snoring. ;p)

IN A NUTSHELL 

The Worlds uses the British Parliamentary style of debating. There are two sides, the government who proposes a case, and an opposition who opposses it. Each sides are divided into two benches: the opening and the closing teams. The opening team makes the case for the whole side, while the closing team extends the case further. That makes four teams in a round. The best team would get 3 points. The runner up gets 2, the third placer gets one point and the last placer zero.

Teams who have the highest accumulated points (and speaker scores, if there’s a tie in points) would advance into the final rounds. Better teams are matched against each other as the rounds progress. This is called power match-ups. That means that if you win in a round, your opponents in the next round would be the winners in the previous round. That is to say, the more you win, the more difficult it is to win again. There were about 400 or so teams and only top thirty-two would break into the final rounds. Motions (topics) are announced twenty minutes before the debate begins.

THE NUMBERS

Before I go into the details of each debate rounds, here’s a summarry of Lyceum A’s performance:

• Total Points for Lyceum A- 15 points

• Total Speaker Scores for Lyceum A- 1318

• Over-all Philippine Ranking for Lyceum A- 8th

• Over-all Worlds Ranking for Lyceum A- 148th

• Total Speaker Score for J- 661

• Total Speaker Score for Suzy- 657

• Over-all Philippine Ranking for J- 28th

• Over-all Philippine Ranking for Suzy- 30th

• Over-all Worlds Ranking for J- 424th

• Over-all Worlds Ranking for Suzy- 449th

In comparison to the winners:

• Champion (English as Native Language)- OXFORD A (United Kingdom) - 25 points

• Best Performing Team in the Philippines and Asia- ATENEO A- 18 points

• ESL (English as Second Language) Category Champion- AMSTERDAM A (Netherlands)- 14 points

• EFL (English as Foreign Language) Category Champion- KEIO A (Japan)- 12 points

  (You will notice that even though we got higher points than the ESL and EFL champions, we were not able to break into the final rounds. That’s because the Lyceum and all the Philippine teams were classified by the Adjucation Core under the English as Native Language category, which disqualified us from breaking into the ESL and EFL categories.)

In the preliminary rounds, our team was able to defeat a composite team from Princeton University (United States) and University of Alberta (Canada), University of Technology Sydney A (Australia), Brandeis University C (United States), University of La Verne C (United States), Rhodes University B (South Africa), International Islamic Univeristy E (Malaysia), Univeristi Malaya (Malaysia), teams from the Universiti Teknologi Mara (Malaysia), Colombo University (Sri Lanka), North-South Univeristy A (Bangladesh), Lahore University of Management Sciences B (Pakistan), Mahidol University (Thailand), Tokyo University A (Japan), Keio University A (Japan, EFL Champion) and Hanyang Univeristy D (South Korea) 

THE DEBATES

ROUND 1

THIS HOUSE WILL USE TORTURE

• 3pts- UNIVERSITY OF LONDON UNION A  as Opening Opposition

• 2pts- INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY D (Malaysia) as Closing Government

• 1pt- LYCEUM A as Opening Government

• 0- NORTH-SOUTH UNIVERSITY (Bangladesh) as Closing Opposition

Speaker Score:

• J: 69
• Suzy: 73

Adjudicators:

• Chair: RAJESH KRISHNAN, Worlds Deputy Chief Adjudicator, Singapore

• CHIANG WENG HOE, Multimedia University, Malaysia

• CHIMIN LEE, Christian University of Daegyu, Korea

As Opening Government, we proposed that African states should not interfere with tribal group’s way of using torture as a form of punishment. We argued that it is part and parcel of their long-held ancient tradittion and all tribal people subscribe to it, and that interfering with such a tradittion would break the harmony between these tribes and the state. London U challenged this definition somehow, saying that we should have set the debate to the context of torture as method to extract information. Although they did rebutt some of our arguments on torture in the tribal context, all their constructive arguments dwelled with their own definition of torture. Closing Government sticked with our definition of torture and presented a case that’s similar with ours, yet better explained. Closing Opposition abandoned London U by sticking to our definitions and arguing that state should prevail over tribal laws to avoid political instability. I still don’t know how the white men were able to get the win.

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ROUND 2

THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT TAIWAN SHOULD DECLARE INDEPENDENCE NOW

• 3pts- AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY B as Closing Opposition
• 2pts- LYCEUM A as Opening Opposition
• 1pt- HANYANG UNIVERSITY D (Korea) as Opening Government
• 0- KEIO UNIVERSITY A (Japan) as Closing Government; would later become champion of the EFL category

Speaker Score:

• JJ- 76
• Suzy- 75

Adjudiators:

• Chair: ZHUANG ERJIN, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

• MD. RAIHANUZAMMAN RUMMAN, Islamic University of Bangladesh

• Bernard Joseph Guerrero, University of the Philippines-Diliman

The Koreans and the Japanese were surprisingly fluent in English (more fluent than me, mind you). The Korean team started the debate by saying Taiwan should declare independence because it has the requirements of an independence state. We argued that just because it has the necessary ingredients to be a state doesn’t mean it should declare independence. We said status quo is okay because Taiwan gets to do what it wants to do within its borders and that a declaration of independece would be self-defeating because it will lead to Chinese retaliation and further diplomatic isolation, not to mention potential conflict in the region, which would leave Taiwan having a damaged economy and diplomatic clout at best, and losing its very existence at worst. I honestly can’t remember how Keio extended the Korean’s case, but the Australians extended ours by discussing the economic side further, which was already discussed by us anyway.

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ROUND 3

THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT LOCAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT SHOULDER THE COST OF RELOCATING HOMELESS PEOPLE

• 3pts- UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE E as Opening Opposition

• 2pts- LYCEUM A as Closing Opposition

• 1pt- UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNE (United Staes) as Opening Government

• 0- LAHORE UNIVERSITY OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCE (Pakistan) as Closing Government 

Speaker Score:

• J- 74

• Suzy- 70

Adjudicators:

• Chair- STEPHEN NOLAN, University College Cork, Ireland

• NED DOUGLAS, Monash University, Australia

• PATRICIA HERIVANDEZ, Ateneo de Manila University

La Verne proposed that homeless people should be given shelters only during the night and be allowed to wander accross the street during the day. These shelters would be funded by the state because, they said, these homeless people move from town to town (meaning they don’t belong to a permanent town) and as such town governments should not be responsible for them. Melbourne said that local government should pay for a permanent housing district for these people because it’s local government that is close to them. The opening teams never discused the spirit of the motion: the question of wether it should be the state and not the local goverment who should pay for the relocation and why. They just dwelled on whether a permanent housing community is better than a nightly shelter and vice versa. I’m guilty of this flaw as well, however, as I discussed as my extension how a permanent housing community would promote camaraderie among the homeless (similar to what we have in Manila slums) and empower them to become one of the three stakeholders in the fight against homelessness, the others being the state and the local governments. Suzy tried to salvage the debate by discussing the difference in role between state and local governments and why  the local government is in the position to take the lead role in the problem of homelesness. The Pakistanis argued again on why temporary shelters are better than permanent communtites by insiting that it is safer.

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ROUND 4

THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT THE EUROPEAN UNION SHOULD ALLOCATE AID ONLY TO COUNTRIES PURSUING ENVIRONMENTALLY-SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

• 3pts- SWARTHMORE UNIVERSITY A (United States) as Opening Government

• 2pts- LYCEUM A as Closing Government

• 1pt- INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY E (Malaysia) as Opening Opposition

• 0- RHODES UNIVERSITY B (South Africa) as Closing Opposition 

Speaker Score:

• J: 78
• Suzy: 76

Adjudicators:

• Chair: DEIRDE O’DONOHOE, UCD Law, Ireland

• CHENG CHI WAI DAUD, Univeristy of Hong Kong

• MI KYONG KIM, Kyunghee University, Korea

The Americans came up saying that climate change is an urgent problem that both the First World and the Developing World should solve. The EU, they said, should use aid as a leverage into forcing the Third World countries into joining the fight against climate change and as a means of assisting developing nations in their own effort to save the environment. The Malaysians as Opening Opposition said the First World should solve the global warming by themselves since it is them who actually caused the problem in the first place. We argued that even though the Third World did not cause climate change, they should still join the fight against it since global warming is a threat that will affect every country. We argued that there should be collective effort among the First and Third World states to solve warming and EU’s aid should be instrumental in that effort. The South Africans never rebutted our arguments and instead said, in their emotional speeches, that the First World should stop enslaving the Third World. Kind of like Hugo Chavez.

ROUND 5

THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT THE STATE SHOULD PROVIDE LAWYERS TO ALL CRIMINAL DEFENDANTS

• 3pts- MASSACHUSSETS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY A (United States) as Closing Opposition

• 2pts- SINGAPORE MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY B as Closing Government

• 1pt- LYCEUM A as Opening Opposition

• 0- Composite team from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY (United States) and UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA (Canada)

Speaker scores:

• J- 74

• Suzy- 76

 Adjudicators:

• Chair ALEX HILL, Oxford University, England

• BRIGIT MORRIS, University of Sydney, Australia

• NISHANTHA VIJITH DE SILVA, National University of Lesotho

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ROUND 6

THIS HOUSE WILL PUT RESTRICTIONS ON FOREIGN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS

• 3pts- ST. ANDREW’S UNIVERSITY A (United Kingdom) as Closing Opposition

• 2pts- RHODES UNIVERSITY D (South Africa) as Closing Government

• 1pt- KOC UNIVERSITY A (Turkey) as Opening Opposition

• 0- LYCEUM A as Opening Government

Speaker score:

• J- 63

• Suzy- 63

 Adjudicators:

• Chair WILL JONES, Oxford University, England

• MD RASHEDUL HASAN STALIN, Independent

• SHAUGHENESSY HAWKINS, University of Guelph, United States 

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ROUND 7

THIS HOUSE WILL ASSASSINATE VLADIMIR PUTIN

• 3pts- UNIVERSITY OF INDONESIA A as Opening Opposition

• 2pts- LYCEUM A as Closing Opposition

• 1pt- UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO A as Opening Government

• 0- COLOMBO UNIVERSITY A (Sri Lanka) as Closing Goverment

Speaker score:

• J- 76

• Suzy- 74

 Adjudicators:

• Chair EOIN KIKENNY, Independent

• DAN RABER, University of Winnipeg, Canada

• YONGKYUNG CHUNG, Yonsei University, Korea

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ROUND 8

THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT THE STATE SHOULD NOT HELP STRUGGLING PRIVATE INDUSTRIES

• 3pts- LYCEUM A as Closing Government

• 2pts- UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA (Malaysia) as Opening Opposition

• 1pt- UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA (Malaysia) as Opening Government

• 0- MAHIDOL UNIVERSITY (Thailand) as Closing Opposition

Speaker Score:

• J- 75

• Suzy- 77

 Adjudicators:

• Chair CHRIS RICHTER, Portland State University, United States

• HIROMU NAMIKI, International Christian University, Japan

• DOMINIQUE STOCKHAUSEN, University of La Verne, United States

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ROUND 9

THIS HOUSE WILL DENY TERMINALLY-ILL PATIENTS SCARCE MEDICAL RESOURCES

• 3pts- TRINITY COLLEGE- DUBLIN B (Ireland) as Opening Opposition

• 2pts- LYCEUM A as Closing Opposition

• 1pt- UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY- SYDNEY A (Australia) as Closing Government

• 0- BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY (United States) as Opening Government

Speaker scores:

• J- 76

• Suzy- 73

 Adjudicators:

• Chair ADRIENNE LIPSEY, University of Toronto Hart House, Canada

• RAHUL BHASKER, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

• THOMAS DOWD, Hawaii Pacific University