Ateneo Takes Square Off Championship
Square Off: The CVCLAW Debates is a weekly nation-wide television debate program broadcast on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC).
Sponsored by CVCLAW [Villaraza Cruz Marcelo & Angangco], Square Off: The CVCLAW Debates seeks to develop the Philippine legal system by supporting debate as an avenue to supplement legal education and achieve practical training of law students. CVCLAW believes that enhancing the level of debate in the country would improve the skills of future law practitioners which will improve the administration of justice.
Moreover, CVCLAW believes that debating is an effective medium that could foster camaraderie, reliability, fairness, candor, and goodwill, not just among team members, but among all students of the participating law schools, thereby instilling early on in future practitioners the tenets of the Code of Professional Responsibility.
Square Off: The CVCLAW Debates aims to aid students of law to polish their oratorical skills and develop their confidence, character, and personality to become effective public speakers and advocates of the law.
The debate is between two sides, the affirmative and negative, with three (3) members each. Each debater from the affirmative side argues the necessity, beneficiality or practicability of the proposition. The counterpart debaters on the negative side oppose these arguments. Each debater is given four (4) minutes to deliver a constructive speech and rebut the arguments of the previous debater. Each debater is given two (2) minutes to interpellate or cross-examine the opposing debater. Only categorical questions may be asked.
Each of the three (3) judges may ask one (1) question of each speaker within that speaker’s time limit. The chief judge rules in the event of ties, objectives or contestations. The judges’ total scores determine the best speaker and the winning team.
Emerging as champion of Season 3 is the debating team of the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law. Composed of Roland Glenn Tuazon, Kazimir Kira Ang, and Joseph Roman Dela Cuesta, the Rockwell-based law students defeated their rivals from the University of the Philippines College of Law.
Tuazon, Ang and Dela Cuesta argued that Vizconde massacre convict Hubert Webb should be acquitted after the State failed to produce the semen specimen for DNA analysis, a process that could prove his innocence. |
