Ateneo de Zamboanga reaches Square Off Final

Hajim is final round Texter’s Choice, but Ateneo de Manila prevails

It was an All-Ateneo final that featured the best debate society in the Philippines against an upstart from Mindanao. Although Ateneo de Manila won the final and the prize of an all-expense paid trip to the 28th World Universities Debating Championship in Bangkok, Thailand, Ateneo de Zamboanga managed to turn heads by beating several nationally renowned debate societies on their way to the championship match.

Square Off: The Philippine Debate Championships, debuted its first season of competitive debating on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) this year. The debates were in a modified British Parliamentary format, with only opening teams of two members each going head-to-head. The tournament ran from September to December of 2007, with matches televised live every Wednesday evening.

It featured teams from the 16 schools that competed in the Philippine Inter-collegiate Debating Championship 2007. Seeding was determined according to the school’s break rank in the PIDC. Five schools from Mindanao were picked for the competition: Ateneo de Davao University, Ateneo de Zamboanga University, Xavier University, Mindanao State University – Marawi and Western Mindanao State University.

Despite the high seed courtesy of AdDU A’s (Sam Salisipan, David Jalotjot and Kristine Uy) octofinal break in the PIDC, AdDU was not able to advance to the Square Off quarterfinals after David Jalotjot and Kristine Uy were beaten by Lyceum’s Barny Rivera and Suzy Claire Selleza. Also failing to advance beyond the octofinals were MSU-M’s John Louie Balagot and Abdel Sultan, losing to semifinalists Claire Jiao and Melissa Sayoc of the University of the Philippines – Diliman, and WMSU’s Grace Agudelo and Annaly Estores, who were beaten by top seed and eventual champions Sharmila Parmanand and Charisse Borromeo of AdMU.

The first to make waves in the tournament was AdZU, who beat Adrian Rabe, one of the Top Ten Speakers in Asia, and his teammate from the University of the Philippines – Manila in their octofinal match, scoring one of the biggest upsets in the octofinal round. In a battle of upstarts in the quarterfinal, AdZU went on to beat the team from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, which upset the 3rd seeded University of Santo Tomas in their octofinal match.

Xavier University’s Zed Abantas and Gian Marlon Libot also won their octofinal match against Jahzheel Cruz and Arlene Bonifacio of the University of the Philippines – Baguio, but fell to Dino de Leon and Robin Sebolino of De La Salle University in the quarterfinals.

The semifinals was a stage for another huge upset as Segovia and Hajim beat the 2nd seeded team of the tournament, UPD, despite the team from Diliman having Jiao, one of the Top Ten Speakers in the Philippines. In the round, Hajim was the panel’s choice and texter’s choice for best speaker. It should be noted that Hajim was the texter’s choice for every round AdZU was in, including the final against AdMU, which elicited a curious comment from host Twink Macaraig.

AdZU’s performance in Square Off is just another proof that Mindanao already has debate talents that can compete with the best that the rest of the Philippines can offer.