Philippine Debate

According to speaker scores, that is. Since the National Debate Championship and Philippine Inter-collegiate Championship all had preliminaries lasting seven rounds, both tournaments had equal weight. Obviously, only speakers who competed in both competitions had a shot in getting in the top ten. Total speaker points from both tournaments were simply added to come up with the season total.

Rank	Speaker	Institution	NDC Score	PIDC Score	Total
1	Biscocho, Miko	Ateneo de Manila University	538	539.5	1077.5
2	Jiao, Claire	University of the Philippines Diliman	532	540	1072
3	Mangahas, Gica	Ateneo de Manila University	534	537	1071
4	Grajo, Teresa	University of the Philippines Diliman	534	536.5	1070.5
5	Zosa, Ely	Ateneo de Manila University	531	537.5	1068.5
6	Co, Steph	Ateneo de Manila University	531	537	1068
7	Tagle, Vincenzo	Ateneo de Manila University	528	535.5	1063.5
8	Arcellana, Anna	University of the Philippines Diliman	531	530	1061
9	Valente, Noel	Silliman University	530	530	1060
10	Gairanod, Pauline	Ateneo de Manila University	526	533	1059

Miko Biscocho of Ateneo tops the list after getting top speaker honors for the National Debate Championship and narrowly missing - by just half a point — the top spot for the Philippine Intercollegiate Debate Championship. PIDC 2008 Top Speaker Claire Jiao finishes second - she was the fifth-best speaker in the NDC.

Gica Mangahas finishes third with a combination of a 2nd place showing in the NDC and a fourth-best effort at the PIDC. UP Diliman’s Teresa Grajo is fourth overall after placing 2nd in the NDC (tied with Mangahas) and seventh in the PIDC.

Three Ateneans are bunched up in the middle of the top ten. Ely Zosa was tied as the NDC’s sixth-best speaker and was also the PIDC’s third-best speaker.Steph Co was likewise tied for sixth in the NDC and tied for fourth in the PIDC - she was sixth overall. Vincenzo Tagle wasn’t in the top ten during the NDC (18th) but his strong eighth place finish in the PIDC powers him to the seventh slot.

Anna Arcellana of UP Diliman did not make the top 10 in the PIDC (15th), but her tied-for-6th placing at the NDC was enough to put her at eighth. At number nine is probably the biggest surprise of the ten, Silliman University’s Noel Valente didn’t make the top 10 in either of the two national tournaments, but thanks to his consistency - 530 on both tournaments — he was able to sneak into ninth place. Valente was 15th in the PIDC and 12th in the NDC.

Another Atenean closes out the top ten in Pauline Gairanod. Like Valente, Gairanod was not in the top 10 in either tournament but her solid scores were able to pull her ranking up. She was 19th in the NDC and 11th in the PIDC (missed the last spot by half a point).

HOW COME?

Now, you could be asking, how could people who were never in the top ten of either tournament be in the cumulative top ten? The biggest reason here is the fact that debaters don’t always join both tournaments.

If you look at the NDC’s top (actually a list of 11 due to ties) - two people there actually didn’t compete as debaters in the PIDC. Ateneo de Davao’s Sam Salisipan served as PIDC Deputy Chief Adjudicator while Marj Lamboso did not participate.

For the PIDC - One of the top ten speakers didn’t participate in the NDC. Kip Oebanda of Ateneo was one of the top adjudicators in the PMA NDC.

The people who just missed it…

Rank	Speaker	Institution	NDC score	PIDC score	Total
11	de Castro, Dani	Ateneo de Manila University	525	533.5	1058.5
12	Jalotjot, David	Ateneo de Davao University	533.5	525	1057.5
12	Chan, Aaron	University of the Philippines, Diliman	529	528.5	1057.5
12	Maulit, Jayson	San Beda College	530	527.5	1057.5
15	de Leon, Dino	De Lasalle University	528	529	1057
16	Parmanand, Shiveena	Ateneo de Manila University	527	529	1056

Disclaimer: I just added the numbers. This is NOT meant to serve as any definitive ranking. Again, i just added the numbers. If I missed anyone, please leave a comment.