Lyceum Debaters performed well at the World's Championships

The 28th World Universities Debate Championships was held last December 2007 in Assumption University in Pattaya, Thailand. The World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) is the world's largest debating tournament, and one of the largest annual international student events in the world

Our debaters who proudly represented our university and our country in the said event were the following: Suzy Claire Selleza, the captain of the team. She’s been debating for four years now, and has served the Lyceum Debate Society first as Keeper of the Purse (treasurer) and now as Grand Chancellor (president). She’s appeared on ANC’s Square Off with Barny Rivera and has broken into the octofinals of the National Debate Championship (NDC) twice. She’s also been to several other tournaments including the Asian Universities Debate Championship (AUDC) in 2006 in Manila, the Philippine Inter-Collegiate Debate Championship (PIDC) and its predecessor, the Inquirer Inter-Collegeiate Debate Championship (IIDC) and several other local inter-varsities (IVs). She’s taking up AB Legal Studies and is now on her fourth year. She plans to pursue Master’s Degree in International Relations or Public Policy abroad, most probably in the National University of Singapore.

The second member is JJ Domingo, a junior International Relations student. He started debating in high school under the Oxford-Oregon and Lincoln-Douglas formats. He adjudicated in the Inquirer Inter-School Debate Championship (IISDC) in Ateneo in 2005 and debated in several competitions including the IIDC, CSB IVs, UST IVs and the Manila AUDC. He stopped debating last year but I adjudicated in the ICU Tourney in Tokyo, joined some practices of Aoyama Gakuin University Debate Club in Yokohama and helped in the 2007 recruitment of the Sophia Debate Society in Tokyo.

The third and last member of the Lyceum team is Lourdes Cengca, they call her Cheeney. She served as the adjudicator. She's also from the College of International Relations. She already graduated last May, as Cum Laude (cheers!!).Like Suzy, she has broken into the octo’s of the NDC in Baguio last year. She adjudicated in the IISDC and several IVs, and debated in the Manila AUDC, IIDC, PIDC and NDC.

The Worlds uses the British Parliamentary style of debating. There are two sides, the government who proposes a case, and an opposition who opposses it. Each sides are divided into two benches: the opening and the closing teams. The opening team makes the case for the whole side, while the closing team extends the case further. That makes four teams in a round. The best team would get 3 points. The runner up gets 2, the third placer gets one point, and the last placer zero

In the preliminary rounds, the Lyceum was able to defeat a composite team from Princeton University (United States) and University of Alberta (Canada), University of Technology Sydney A (Australia), Brandeis University C (United States), University of La Verne C (United States), Rhodes University B (South Africa), International Islamic Univeristy E (Malaysia), Univeristi Malaya (Malaysia), teams from the Universiti Teknologi Mara (Malaysia), Colombo University (Sri Lanka), North-South Univeristy A (Bangladesh), Lahore University of Management Sciences B (Pakistan), Mahidol University (Thailand), Tokyo University A (Japan), Keio University A (Japan, EFL Champion) and Hanyang Univeristy D (South Korea)

Here's a summary of Lyceum's performance:
Total Points for Lyceum A- 15 points
Total Speaker Scores for Lyceum A- 1318
Over-all Philippine Ranking for Lyceum A- 8th
Over-all Worlds Ranking for Lyceum A- 148th
Total Speaker Score for J- 661
Total Speaker Score for Suzy- 657
Over-all Philippine Ranking for J- 28th
Over-all Philippine Ranking for Suzy- 30th
Over-all Worlds Ranking for J- 424th
Over-all Worlds Ranking for Suzy- 449th

(many thanks to thenutbox.i.ph for the article and pictures)