DEBATERS from the AB Debate Parliament emerged as grand champions in the African Novice Tournament, a worldwide British parliamentary debating competition held virtually from March 7 to 9.
Asian studies sophomore Matthew Parra and political science junior Danica Araoarao from the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) bested 140 other teams to bring home the title.
Parra, who was named best speaker in the final round, said the achievement marked the triumphant return of the Artlets debate team.
“There has been a huge drought due to stagnancy before and during the pandemic, and then nag-carry on siya. And now we’re slowly getting back into it,” Parra told the Varsitarian.
Araoarao said the team had to adjust to language barriers by understanding the culture and context of their foreign competitors.
“When you debate, you debate with your principles, and you don’t want to risk misrepresenting the people that you are debating with, just because you are ignorant towards these contexts,” she said.
The Artlets team also had to keep up with their opponents’ evolving techniques and style, while adjusting to the level of competition in the international stage.
“We’re not just training ourselves, but we’re also teaching the first-timers, especially since most of the contingents for [African Novice Tournament] from AB Debate Parliament were first-timers competing outside UST,” Parra said.
The AB Debate Parliament is aiming to train more members in preparation for future regional and international competitions.
“The training is already in place. We’re still going to model after the training method that we have. Our challenge now is to acclimate our new debaters toward the Asian parliamentary format,” Araoarao said.
“We have such good debaters. The only problem is, we don’t have a lot of support,” Parra said.
Several Artlets students also made it to the quarterfinals of the debate tilt, including literary sophomores Sofia Castanares and Maurizia Hernandez, philosophy student Maria Elona, and political science junior Claudette Bayabay.
Senior economics student Andre Evangelista was also named a quarterfinalist adjudicator.
Other Thomasians who participated in the debate tilt were political science freshmen Paula Valdemar and Elisha Gonzales, economics sophomore Pam Fale, literary sophomore Naoime Hernandez, legal management freshman Martin Galapon, and philosophy sophomore Matthew Ama.
The African Novice Tournament was joined by almost 300 debaters from around the world, with UST being the only school from the Philippines. with reports from Venerando P. Pagaduan VII
