Over the last couple of weeks I attended two public speaking competitions, as a judge and as a member of the audience. The first was the Voice of Our Youth (VOY) National Impromptu Speaking Competition, and the other was the Volvo Voice of Leadership competition.
The VOY contest is a well-established one, involving as it does, elimination rounds in the provinces conducted under the auspices of various Rotary Club districts. The students generally spoke very well, but what struck me were some observations made by fellow judge Butch Dalisay on the sidelines of the competition.
I asked him how the students compared to, say, his generation and the oratorical contests they participated in. He immediately brought up the Voice of Democracy competitions of his youth, and observed that the schoolchildren of today speak better. But he was troubled by what he felt to be a lack of curiosity about the world on the part of the kids, and said he couldn’t shake off the impression that the otherwise impressive rhetorical ability of the kids masked a lack of depth when it came to issues, and the real world.
For example, even as the kids generally bewailed the depressing lack of genuine service among today’s leaders, and condemned corruption, and violence and the degradation of the environment, Dalisay said he was constantly waiting for the kids to exhort their audience to take up a good book, or read the papers, or watch the news, so as to be better informed of the many issues swirling around them.
The Volvo contest, on the other hand, is the first one ever, and included a camp activity. For my part let me suggest that the parameters of the contest betrayed excessive caution on the part of the sponsors. But then again, being a privately-sponsored contest one really can’t quibble with the overarching limitation of the contest’s definition of leadership:
It advocates the development of youth leaders who shall embody the character of true leadership – that with both integrity of heart and excellent skills that is rooted in God-centeredness and exemplified by accountable and responsible stewardship – and who shall articulate the voice of leadership that would move and inspire, innovate and instigate leadership transformation among the youth.
That overarching parameter, I suppose, doesn’t bother schools like the Ateneo de Manila in the least, though for people like me, who are trying to focus the public’s attention on the need for a more secular approach to national problems, chalk up another win for those who advocate religious supremacy in all things.
Contests like these help provide a glimpse into the minds of young people, how they process information, and to what extent they’re armed with the tools necessary to become not just reliable employees, but active citizens. For some time now, I’ve believed that an active civic sense is what needs to be fostered, because we’re paying the price for the manner in which nurturing that civic sense was effectively abandoned by educators.
A couple of years ago, at a forum in Jose Rizal University, former Senate President Salonga, asked by a student what would get the country out of the logjam it’s in, thundered, “what this country needs is not Charter Change but character change!” and received a tremendous ovation in response.
Every seems agreed on that point, but then seems stumped on how to accomplish that change. Organized religion seems to be moving more effectively towards a “God-centered” solution to all things. The best proof of this is the stir which the present Chief Justice himself caused, but that’s for another entry.
Anyway, here are the three winners of the Volvo competition, which have helpfully been uploaded to YouTube.
The winner of the competition, John Xavier Valdes of the Ateneo de Manila:
The first runner-up, Regina Isabelle Rananda of Miriam College:
And the second runner-up, Christian Earl Castañeda of LaSalle Greenhills:
They are remarkable performances, each and every one (and so were the rest, on the whole). Hopefully, in the future, the VOY competition will also consider posting the performances of their winners on line. The winners of the Allied Bank-sponsored, Rotary-led competition, go on to represent the country in public speaking contests overseas.
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2 Feedbacks on "Too many leaders and too few followers?"
fjose
VOD, like that poor excuse of a foreign affairs secretary, who evolved from “a bolo in my hand” and somthing about high walls, into “lay down and enjoy it” in regards to possibly getting raped in Iraqi invaded Kuwait.
fjose
Fine example these VOD competitors turned out to be.
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