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<\/p>\nThere has always been something different about Filipinos- their capability to give emphasis on what they are fighting for, like the fresh MA graduate from Ateneo de Manila , Andrei Kristian Buendia, who\u00a0was hailed as Asia’s Best Debater.<\/p>\n
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The last time a Filipino took home the “best debater” title was when Pearl Simbulan of the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman won in 2012. However, Filipino debater, Andrei Kristian Buendia managed to break the said norm by beating more than 200 international students\u00a0at the United Asian Debating Championship (UADC), \u00a0held at Siem Reap, Cambodia last July 28-August 5, 2017 after being awarded the highest individual award-\u00a0Asia’s Best Debater.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Andrei Buendia was\u00a0always a talker as a child. He would converse with people three or four times his\u00a0age and would do so nonchalantly. He was very comfortable in speaking;\u00a0it was only a matter of time before his\u00a0teachers noticed and asked him\u00a0if he\u00a0would like to participate in public speaking competitions. He got his first taste of debate back in 2010\u00a0when he was just in his third year in high school at\u00a0San Beda College – Alabang, when the said school was just forming their own debate team.<\/p>\n
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Although he never really dreamed of becoming a debater,\u00a0\u00a0he considered debate as something that\u00a0was just asked of him to try out. He eventually \u00a0liked it, and ended up dedicating so much of his life into it. During the duration of his career as a debater, at some point, he had to defend the legitimacy of Satanism as a religious belief. He believes that what he learned from defending things that he is\u00a0personally against, is that many things we consider to be morally black and white, are actually not so absolute.\u00a0”\u00a0I guess doing so at a young age also forced me to understand the reality that sometimes we just have to do what we\u2019ve got to do, even if we don\u2019t like it. At the end of it all, we are here to do a job. All we need to do is get it done.”<\/em><\/p>\n Being part of United Asian Debating Championship (UADC) means reading a lot. He was\u00a0only given the motions (or topics) 15 to 30 minutes before the round actually started\u00a0and were not allowed to access the internet during the preparation time.Topics will touch things like international relations, feminism, finance, philosophy, environmental issues, etc.. Debating, after all, isn\u2019t just spewing out facts. It is persuasion. He had\u00a0to train to be persuasive with how he talked, how he made contact with judges, etc.<\/p>\n For Buendia,\u00a0representing the Philippines is great simply because the Philippine Debate Community is very\u00a0supportive\u00a0and being crowned the Best Speaker of Asia was just the best way to give back to the community. “Of course we didn\u2019t come home with the Championship, but Ateneo got the 2 closest things to it: a Grand Finals Appearance (care of Ateneo 2 comprised of Roi Lim, Victoria Barcelon, and Inna Fermin), and the top individual award which I took home. It\u2019s also amazing because I\u2019m being offered so many opportunities to teach debaters around Asia. But most importantly, it just feels like all the hard work finally paid off and I can retire from competitive debating in peace.<\/em>“, he adds.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cambodiauadc2017\/videos\/744181455790477\/<\/p>\n What do you think of Andrei Buenida’s win as Best Debater in Asia? Share your thoughts with us, below!<\/p>\n Written By: Patricia Antoinette M. Nacianceno Filipino debating teams were not simply competing; they were seeking to prove their worth as democratic subjects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3680,3681,3682,3679],"class_list":["post-19989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-current-events","tag-andrei-bautista","tag-ateneo-debate-society","tag-best-debater","tag-uadc"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2017\/08\/filipino-best-debater-asia-08062017_DBB536C4879742FBB05AD9A80E13C28A.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19989"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20064,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19989\/revisions\/20064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2017\/08\/20773636_10209810259161834_318140208_o.jpg\")
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\nImage Source: Facebook<\/a>, Ateneo Debate Society<\/a>; Video from: CambodiaUADC<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"