Bastardizing ORADEC Personalities

I feel like bastardizing personalities today as response to the repressive effects of the scorching summer heat. Chocolates and cheese plus high degree Celsius can easily trigger my migraine this summer so in effect I am highly discouraged to munch sinful bars or amounts. In effect, I have become a pre-schooler who has to bring big bottles or jugs of water just to constantly re-hydrate myself.

Since I cannot curse the sun, let the following people take the brunt:

The Oratorical and Debate Council (ORADEC) has a debate chamber which recently competed in the 5th Inquirer Intercollegiate Debate Championship in UP Diliman last April 3 to 7, 2006. The bastardization is then hinged on how the following debaters/adjudicators behaved during the weeklong debate camp in Tagaytay and during the tournament proper.

Caveat: My bastardization is for entertainment purposes only. You will be lucky if you see grains of truth and if you derive lessons from it.

Team A

Gee. She is a walking encyclopedia. Maybe. She looks like a hardbound book anyway. :-) She knows a lot of matter but I think she lacks the verbal sophistication. With neophyte adjus, she will not be appreciated. I hope she will also consider improving her facility of the language. Fluency is not enough, she has to sound more sincere and she needs to modulate her voice further. She is better now definitely. Zaldy, Melvin, and Jazz cannot demean her anymore like before.

Gee is in love although she does not fully admit it. I saw a different sparkle in her eyes. I saw her that night as a sweet lady trying to tighten the bond with someone who has a mutual feeling towards her. I like them together although Gee said that her ideal guy must be older than her, among other criteria. I hope she does not get too picky because she might end up in the nunnery.

Mark. I hate him for asking the obvious. He plays ignorant and innocent even if the facts are right before his eyes. He is a big guy who tends to act like a small boy. I feel he wants to be babied. What a BIG baby! Find a grandmother!

He has no keen eye for directions. He can easily get lost. He wants to have a company whenever he travels. My God! Pre-schooler lang? I hate him for not having the guts when he has all the reasons to be confident. He is tall, intelligent, and mesomorphic. As a result, I don’t think he is very satisfied with the direction of his life. That’s why I discourage him to be a student leader. He must first learn how to value himself. DEBATE! DEBATE! DEBATE! instead. You have a high level of analysis but I hope you improve teamwork skills. So triumph in this field first before you move to somewhere else.

He sleeps a lot. He could have been raped in Tagaytay if only Rose Lyn is a maniac. Or was it his hint to finally put a stop to his statement, “It’s been a while…?”

Kevin. I like his angst and guts. He is a very determined person. I hope he polishes his grammar further and I hope he will listen to himself while talking so that he will not look like having a heart attack. I hope he will read more so that he will have more spectra of analysis to hinge his arguments on.

I like his fashion statement now. He loves wearing that white jacket from Taiwan during lunchtime. The Philippines is a tropical country, right?

He is also starting to flirt and starting to go out fully from the box. I will support him except his idea that he is a bisexual. Physically, I think he is more highly inclined towards the XX traits. Maybe psychologically, he still has the duo preference. Saan ka masaya, suportahan ta ka!

Remember: (1) If you cannot be good, be safe! (2) Work before pleasure!

Team B

Jan. When Dr. Fronda told me that he preferred to spend his last days in FEU with ORADEC despite loads of paper work, I became teary-eyed as a sign of happiness because he knows how to look back. According to him, ORADEC first developed him and he wants to repay the org. So he joined us in Tagaytay and during the tourney for technology transfer.

Unfortunately, he was not able to end it with a bang. He was still very panicky which tremendously affected his analysis. I think his preparation was not yet sufficient to overcome the pressure not to mention other concerns factored in during the training proper like the paper works and some sleepy adjudicators.

He was consistent in certain areas though. Vanity. If only this award is present, he could have won the most good-looking debater award for his tight facial skin courtesy of a gel with collagen, elaborate dental fixtures, hippy earring which fell into a bowl of rice soup, and a red trendy “lucky” polo shirt which he only wore during one busy debate day. Was he lucky anyway?

Goodbye my friend! Happy graduation! May you grow up! :-)

Maren. Structural: Simply rich. Her family owns one place at the exclusive Tagaytay Highlands. She was our hostess for the debate camp. Nice ambiance. Nice food – shabu-shabu and bulalo. Nice mom – strong but gentle.

Substantive: I hope she will be more emotionally attached to those around her. She still feels with her mind. I am not sure if she knows this but she is so detached. She needs to be emphatic of others. It does not mean that the mind shall prevail the heart just because human physiology placed the mind over the heart. Too much use of the mind can be so threatening that can detract possible lovers and friends. (Think of this angle. Reverse. Who knows your lover will recognize this development).

She needs more exposure and practice in debate. She needs to have a debate partner who can understand her frame of mind. I think she needs someone with a stronger personality. By so doing, I hope she bows down from time to time. She needs to take the risk too because her arguments can be too canned.

I hope she stops wearing sleeveless blouses. You look too masculine when you expose this skin. It can be very scandalous too. :-)

Riz. I admire his mom more than him. She was very supportive of Riz’ career. I became his pseudo-dad. Gosh, I do not want a grownup child! I hope he equals the passion of those around him. I hope he avoids beating around the bush. I hope he avoids being too nosy on side issues and non-issues. Hit the right issues instead. I hope he learns how to apply what he has read. I hope he has learned a lot in this debate tilt.

I hope what his mind wills can be actualized in debate. The spirit is not enough. I hope he does not quit debating even if his ideas are frequently lambasted. Although it is an option to quit…:-)

Mabait na bata si Riz. I just hope he will be more properly and bastardly guided in debate. Too, I hope he will not laugh his lungs out when someone falls on the floor. Maren, where are you?

Team C

Sellicha. She has blossomed from an inconspicuous caterpillar to an elegant butterfly. This girl doesn’t know she is elegant. In this tournament, through the suggestions of Rose Lyn and Maren, she became a “Metro girl.” She has started to wear dangling pair of earrings for the first time. For the first time, she has realized that she needs to be trendier in the choice of her outfits’ cut and color.

She has a long way to go and I hope the fire of her passion will not burn out. I hope she will not live up to the idea that she is Kuya Cesar’s female version. You are in debate, not in a novena. So try to speak faster because you have more issues to discuss. I hope she will read a lot. I will bet on her and I hope she will not fail me.

I hope she finds her love too. This will give more color and meaning in her life.

Ron. Boy-next-door-type at night. I have seen how Maren, Rose, Gee, and the married Annabelle were enticed by his looks. I have seen how debaters from UPLB wanted to be his “special friend.” Boyish. His ideas are also too boyish. Too simplistic. I hope he matures physically. He looks too innocent. Consequently, his arguments are too innocent.

I hope he couples his joining the debate circle with genuine goals. It will demand a lot of his time and energy to cope with the information that keeps on coming. I hope he will take risks. I hope he learns to be reasonably disobedient in certain areas. I hope he starts to read offbeat or untraditional ideas so that he will learn other perspectives. I hope he learns how to be sociable. There is politics in debate and isolationism means death.

But I like his attitude. He does not complain. I hope this attitude is not passivity but testing the waters while still learning.

Jay. Jan’s partner in the crime of vanity. He puts a mask on his nose to lift out white heads and all impurities. Thankfully, his brains did not go with the mask. He needs to stabilize his neurons. He needs to be a sponge. Guts can only do so much. He needs to read pages of political, economic, and social issues. I hope he becomes more ambitious in debate. Exposure is not enough. He needs to learn the value of losing and the impetus to work harder in order to achieve greatness.

He tried to seduce Kevin by showing his abs and the garter of his brief but he was not so handsome enough to make Kevin stop from his speech. :-) Perhaps, he needs to reduce the size of his nose to have a more pleasing face value.

Very kind-hearted. He loves his girlfriend a lot. I saw him right after the training with his girlfriend. He was wearing a shirt with the caption “Love ko si Melay.” It was so corny but it was his best way of expressing publicly how he endears Melay. It was a cute gesture though.

Adjudicators

Rose Lyn. She has some fashion sense now. Unlike before, she looked like a man with long hair and boobs. Now, she has the corporate aura except her pair of shoes, it looks so bally for her outfit. She also tries to cover her ham-like biceps by wearing blouses with long sleeves. Unfortunately, the outfit is unsuitable this summer season especially in UP where aircon units are rare.

She adjudicated during the final round of the tourney. This is an achievement by itself because only qualified adjus can reach this round. She loves this not really because of intellectual reasons. She loves the idea of Bobby Benedicto and Carl Ng calling her by first name “IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.” :-) The experience has created the impression that she is rubbing elbows with luminaries in debate. In fairness, I must admit that both are really very good in mind and in person. Bobby is handsome, while Carl is very kind because he brought Rose Lyn her lunch. (This analysis is so sophisticated!).

There is more… Rose Lyn has evolved into a young woman. She is more confident now. She is more maarte now. I hope she deletes some of her pretensions.

Annabelle. She can be reasonable and unreasonable. She can be maturely immature. She walked out from the tournament. I am partly to be blamed. I made her walk under the sun’s scorching heat for lunch in a Korean resto with food she considered as cheap. My only fault was I dragged her to go to a place I was not so certain and offered her food outside her taste. Well, that is UP. I could not bring her to Chocolate Kiss again because some of the kids do not have enough money that day. I have to consider the general welfare because although she looks like an entire contingent, I have to show concern for the real count of heads.

She is a star in the tournament given her impressive track record as an adjudicator. They call her Ma’am and she deserves it. She can plausibly justify her every decision. She is accommodating as debaters continue to approach her for her comments.

I hope she realizes that she is no longer young to do some youthful tasks. I hope she understands how some youngsters feel. I hope she can serve as an inspiration for the young without making the young forget their young blood. I hope she will imbibe more the value of self-sacrifice for the group’s welfare.

I hope she takes care of her health and food intake. The onslaughts of hypertension and high cholesterol can be so threatening.

Me. I want to become a masochist. So here's my story: I dissented in the quarterfinals. It was the biggest mistake in the realm of standardized adjudication. I was the chair of all the matches during the elimination round. I gave a decent adjudication although of course you cannot please all losers. I was able to justify my decision on the victory of the winning team in the octos, but my mind bugged down in the quarters between DLSU and UP Manila. What can I do? I could not buy the cultural imperialism argument of the latter team. (I hope the bugging down was not a sign of aging.) In the semis, Bobby Benedicto approached and asked me to adjudicate because Hanz of Saint Louis University did not come. Well, to put it bluntly, I was a second choice. No worries. Still, I was recognized because I was still the choice among the pool. Then I think my mind functioned well so I was able to justify my semis decision. I have proven that UP Manila was not able to transcend from their argument on warlordism. Ateneo won the semis. Ateneo also won the finals where I served as a member of the adjudication panel. I believe I was already a "first choice" in that top round. :-)

Despite my experiences as a debater and adjudicator, I was still very nervous whenever I gave oral adjudication in each round. I feared the grill from some debaters. Fortunately, the community was friendlier. Or maybe I was able to justify my decisions. Or maybe because I was not defensive. I treated each round as a time to impart some of my insights in debate. Some wrote down my suggestions especially the all-girl team from DLSU whom I adjudicated twice. Some just went out of the room.

Synthesis

I learned that if your intention is positive, positive energies would also follow you. I learned in this tournament the value of silence even if deep inside you are crying out loud.

For the FEU delegation that did fairly well, I learned that the issue of consistency is of primary importance. Debaters need to be consistent in order to win. They must be consistent in their goal, attitude, and strategy.

I learned that to be fully respected by others, you must be consistently respectful. To be consistently treated as a professional, one must consistently exhibit professionalism.

At the end of the day, vanity is not bad after all. It makes one feel good about himself or herself. Its output can boost self-confidence. I should have been vain earlier before the video presentation in the championship dinner. I gave a one-liner and I hated myself because I did not look good. Maren said, “ampangit mo sir!”

No debate.