CVC law debates
Posted at 10/13/2008 4:53 PM | Updated as of 10/13/2008 5:07 PM
CVC law debates
Good day, editor in chief:
I am one of the debaters of the Ateneo de Davao University who participated in the championship rounds of ANC's Square OFF: The CVC Law Debate last October 8 against Arellano.
I am making known my objection over the biased and non-objective reporting done by ABS-CBN News.com last October 10, 2008 entitled Arellano wins "Square off". While this maybe only an e-report published in the net, I am sincerely hoping that my comments will find space in your articles, or at the very least be considered the next time that ABS-CBN writes an article and publishes the same in the net.
There are two points why I am personally disturbed by the article:
First, I personally believe that this article is biased in the CVC Law Debate. It appears to be a justification of why we lost, rather than why Arellano won.
I personally believe that the comments "Ateneo--unable to move from their memorized speeches x x x or may because Arellano appeared more poised x x x" are unwarranted. These are not objective observations, but personal opinions of the writers of ABS-CBN.
Rather than focusing on the merits of why Arellano won, the article in fact seems to point out that Ateneo de Davao debaters merely relied on their speeches-- which is totally untrue because I believe that the ADDU debaters were able to answer substantially all the judge's questions, and that the speeches, though written and some read, were personally prepared by the debaters themselves. The debaters necessarily had to look at their notes precisely because of the possibility of misquoting facts from studies or Supreme Court rulings.
Moreover, rather than praising Arellano's victory, this article seems to point out that Atenean debaters did not have poise. ABS-CBN has in its disposal the media, the least it could have done was publish an objective report on the debate without speculating as to why Ateneo de Davao lost, but rather by providing a transparent set of criteria of why the judges thought the Arellano university should win -- so as to dispel the notion in the minds of the public who watched the debate that indeed there was bias in that decision. ABS-CBN should have protected its sister company and published the set of objective standards ANC imposed which the judges used to decide who won the debate.
I believe that just because ABS-CBN is a sister company of ANC and the client of CVC Law does not justify that they sacrifice the objectivity and neutrality of media reporting. This article only goes to show that even press cannot be trusted to report the facts as they are.
I do believe that ABS-CBN should have just published a story about Arellano winning without the unnecessary speculations on the "kakulangan" ng Ateneo de Davao debaters.
Second, I am disturbed by a portion of this article that many texted the ANC production staff in Cebuano. This seems to imply that Mindanaoans and Cebuanos are sore losers who could not accept the decision. I do believe that the texts sent, if any, were not in Cebuano, simply because We from Mindanao and Cebu know for a fact that people from Luzon cannot understand Bisaya.
This article failed to highlight the main issue of the complaint: the lack of transparency of the decision rendered last October 8. I am one of the debaters, I admit that. And I would accept defeat to a worthy adversary -- or even an unworthy one -- if I was given a valid reason why we lost.
I believe that ABS-CBN wanted to shift the focus away from the fact that people complained simply because there was no reason behind the decision rendered. In failing to defend that there was no bias indeed during that debate (especially after one of the judges announced proudly that he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Arellano University which raised some eyebrows), ABS-CBN shifted the focus back to Ateneo de Davao's inadequacy to win the debate.
I believe that this should not be the case. The media plays an important role in everyone's lives, even something trivial as this. The public clamored to know the legal justification behind the decision -- the truth. And if the truth is what most people suspect it to be, ABS-CBN, in the name of objective reporting, should report that, or at the very least, acknowledge it -- even if it puts into shame its sister company, or some of its lawyers.
Of course, this would be very idealistic for me to ask. But I believe that ABS-CBN abused its power and access to the public when it wrote this article. If it could not have dared address the issue behind the public's complaints (which by the way also included law schools from Manila) -- then it should not have published an article, or at the very least, published one which simply stated:
"Arellano won and Ateneo de Davao lost in an exciting match last October 8, 2008. Arellano defeated this and this team, while Ateneo de Davao defeated this and this team. The topic was LIBRT: Terms of elective officials be lifted. Ateneo defended the affirmative side stating the reasons for lifting term limits. While Arellano won the debate because of this and this argument. The prizes include this and this. And then a short definition of what square off law debate was all about."
That is responsible reporting. Yours was not.
Thank you and more power.
Hanniyah Sevilla
This is in response to the comment posted by Atty. Sevilla,
I agree that the one who handled the panel of judges should be neutral. Even if he was a member of the board of trustees or a former faculty member, it would still have a bearing on the decision. At least what he could have done to dispel this bias in the minds of the people was to clear out why the team from Manila won when their arguments were insubstantial and were focused more on health issues.
Thank you.
Jim Hawkins
utara84[at]yahoo.com
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