Four students from Ateneo High School will compete in an international debate competition.
On the second month of 2017, four students of Ateneo High School will participate in the Cambridge Union Schools Debating Competition.
Debate competitions are indeed tests of deep knowledge and awareness of almost everything. Furthermore, it is a public speaking that can really show how one carries himself and herself in front and defend his or her stand over a certain proposition.
Recently, a news report in Inquirer stated that there will be a Cambridge Union Schools Debating Competition on February of this year.
Based on the news report, four students of Ateneo High School, Hans Rinaldi B. Gonzalez, Luigi Anton S. Alcañeses, Julia Isabelle A. Ocoma, and Nelson Matthew P. Tan have earned slots to compete in the said prestigious event on February.
More than 600 teams and 1,200 debaters have excellently vied for the slots according to the news report. It was on the third and fourth day of December 2016 when the team participated the Asian Schools British Parliamentary Debate Championship or the ABC.
The event which was held in Kowloon, Hong Kong was the qualifying regional debate in Asia wherein sixty teams across Asia took the challenge.
Furthermore, the news report entailed that the topics that were debated upon during the event ranged from international relations and health care topics up to religion and economics.
Gonzalez, an eleventh-grader, admitted that ‘adapting to a completely different format’ compared to the format that they were used to is the greatest test for him. He said that breaking down a seven-minute speech into a five-minute one without losing the contents really prompted them to deliver it with straight words.
Meanwhile, the captain of the debate team, Alcañeses, recognized that his international experiences in the debate have given him the chance to view the world in a ‘larger perspective’.
Both Gonzalez and Alcañeses were part of the Ateneo Debate Team that went out as the victor in the in an international contest last June – the Asian Schools Debate Championship (ASDC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Based on the news report, the debaters were preparing for the upcoming international competition in February with the support of the ABC.
According to Tan, a tenth-grader, he plans to study ‘different styles of debate’ even more. He also expressed that he looks ahead into working with their coaches and alumni.
Meanwhile, the eleventh-grader Ocoma expressed her hope for performance progress as she emphasized that every round in debate gives a chance to get ‘new idea’ that could be used in the future debates.