| The University Debates, Round I |
[06 Feb 2004|12:06am] |
I don't want to be cocky, but it certainly looks as though we've got this tournament in the bag. IPE is the team to beat.
We wiped the floor with MScM. They didn't even stand a chance. (Cannon fodder, Mir called them.) They had one argument (and not a very convincing one at that), they didn't POI us at all, they couldn't rebut any of our arguments, they didn't stick to the parameters we (the government) set for the debate, they were fumbling for words, their reply was just another version of their rebuttal, and none of them made the 7 minute mark.
( blah )
I'm usually quite the bitch at the podium, but they were just so bad and Neil's such a nice guy, Jason was flustered at being thrown into the debate at the last minute, and Shawn was looking at us with puppy dog eyes... I couldn't bring myself to be nasty. Pitiful opponents really cramp my style. I need to bitch, damnit!
That will change if we ever go up against IMC or IT. Or The Team Formerly Known As Agora. The mere sight of Joaqui Laurel (arrogant boyband reject with lips like Mick Jagger and fluff for brains) or Miguel Quesada (aka "TIMY" or "Tanginang Mukha Yan") irritates me. I will be nasty indeed.
We saw two other debates today. Checked out the competition. Found there wasn't any.
IMC vs. EM. IMC didn't even live up to their reputation for being "all form and no substance." They had neither substance nor form. I was surprised that the EM boys were much better speakers than they were. The EM boys have a lot of potential. With more training I think they could be a really good team. I was disappointed when they lost. They had a lot of matter, but they didn't organize their thoughts well and their arguments kind of got drowned out by their facts. The motion was "THBT peace talks between the government and the MILF are futile." IMC (government) had one major argument: the peace talks are futile because of scientific trending. Scientific trending, they explained grandly, is the theory that what's happened once can happen again (Whoa!!! That's like, so profound, dude! I didn't know you needed a theory to tell you that! Kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan?) and since peace talks have failed in the past, they can fail again in the future. They also seemed to think that the MILF, the MNLF, the Abu Sayyaf, the NPA and the HUKBALAHAP are all the same thing. Okay. The confusion between the MILF and the MNLF, that's forgivable. The Abu Sayyaf is stretching it. But the NPA? The HUKBALAHAP? The Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon? How can you possibly confuse an anti-Japanese army with a Muslim secessionist movement?
IEP vs. IT. "THBT GMO products should be banned in the Philippines." IT's basic argument was we should ban GMOs because they could be bad for us, and IEP's basic argument was we shouldn't ban GMOs because they could be good of us. IT said there's nothing wrong with food production in the Philippines, so "if it ain't broke don't fix it." IEP said that innovation was inevitable and that mutated chickens were the wave of the future. Then they started talking a lot about fear, and the IEP reply speaker said that IT presented the "dark side" of the debate and IEP presented the "light side." And at that point I had to resist the urge to snort because in my head, Yoda was talking. "Fear is the path to the dark side..."
The matching for the next round will be announced tomorrow. I can't wait.
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