Miriam College student bags Best Speaker award in ASEAN debate tour

MANILA, Philippines - Miriam College fourth year Environmental Planning and Management (EPM) student, Iris Caluag, bagged the best speaker award during the ASEAN Debate Tournament held last month in Bandung, Indonesia. Caluag garnered the highest individual speaker score among 24 debating participants. Caluag is part of the Philippine team which competed in Indonesia.

The two other members were BS Accountancy student Kim Fenis, also from Miriam College, and Raji Tañada from DLSU-Dasmariñas. The Philippine Team ranked 3rd overall, trumping most except Thailand and the Swing team.

The debate tournament topic covered the Rio+20 themes of sustainable development, climate change and green economy. “Being an EPM major helped me better understand the concepts of the topic. I thought it was crucial to know the topics by heart and how we could manipulate these concepts to our advantage,” says Caluag who was assigned as the team’s rebuttal speaker. 

The Philippine Team was also part of the country’s delegation to the Tunza International Youth Conference hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme. The conference is the avenue by which the Bandung Declaration was produced. Participated in by 129 countries, the Bandung Declaration will be read to world leaders next year during the Rio+20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“The Declaration is the compilation of the youth’s response to the three themes of the Rio+20,” elaborates Calauag.

“It demands for corporations and world leaders to deliver on what they’ve promised such as contributing to a green economy and investing on green businesses.