I was able to prove a lot to myself this weekend. My efforts for making debate beautiful were actually paying off. It’s a great feeling to actually see the fruits of my labor. As we all know, I’m pretty much new in debating compared to my counter parts in other schools who have been debating since they were in first year high school. In fact, I’ve been debating for roughly about 8 months which is really nothing compared to the amount of time they were spending training. So I was really unsure as to how much I could do in the Inquirer 2bu Interschool Debate Championship (IISDC). It’s the country’s biggest debate competition which has about 300 debaters from all over the Philippines. I was representing Claret “A” which was in fact hard to carry because there were a lot of expectations coming from everyone given that Claret –A is the flag carrier of our school. I gave out all my effort during the competition. I didn’t mind it at all that I lack debate experience compared to my counterparts in Miriam , Ateneo, ICA or what have you. All I did was do my best in every game and try to aim high. All of my efforts of researching and training everyday paid off thanks to the help of God almighty. Together with Carlo Flores, we’ve conquered the IISDC and we ended up as the 24th seeded team out of so many institutions. We’ve garnered 13 points which is 5 points behind the top team during the elimination rounds. We were able to take the lead in the octofinals of the tournament beating ICA-C , ranked 9th best team , CSA-C the 10th team in the break rounds and UPIS- E respectively. On the octofinals the motion was This house believes that requiring permits to rally is a democratic imperative in the Philippines. On that round, we were able to eliminate CSA-C and ICA-C which ranked pretty much higher than us on the break rounds. With that, we were able to move to the quarter finals where only 16 teams remain over 132 teams that participated. Sadly our quest ended at the quarter finals. It was really a memorable experience which I’m going to treasure forever and I’ve really learned a lot. I thank God for this opportunity and I hope to do better next time. The lesson I’ve learned is that it’s not about how long you’ve been debating but how well you’ve been preparing. It only means that nothing is impossible if you dream and aim high for it.
