Debate 3.

The Ultimate Victory!

by Michael Fung.

All eyes were on the chairperson that day. It was May the 4^th. “It’s hard to tell who’s going to win,” said Arafat who was sitting beside me, “I think that Sayyidina Othman put up a good fight.” However, I don’t think so. As the debate came to a close, everyone wanted to see the champions of Brunei’s 13^th Interschool English Debate Competition. Our team was triumphant this time while SMSO made a great finish. To the judges, they were going to make a hard decision.

Then the winner was announced… PTEK WON! If you were present at that moment, you would see how stimulated and wild the supporters went at the time. It was practically legendary. This was only the 1^st year in the new school of Katok and we have achieved something already. Every single one of us was thrilled. Huge smiles were on the debate’s team faces.

Before that happened, the team did a good preparation, the topic was “This house believes that health coverage should be the individual’s responsibility” with our team as the opposition – again! Health coverage is basically like health insurance. The Team thought it was an easier topic and did good preparations for it. They dedicated their free – sometimes not so free – time, researching and practicing. They were really well prepared for it.

After the 2^nd semi-finals – the one after ours – we were quite surprised that MD was beaten by SMSO because MD was clearly a better team than the latter – according to sources. Their team – SMSO – consisted of Musa, Helmi and Hayati whom I would say, quite an interesting bunch of people.

We came to RTB like the other day, this time; there were spectators from quite a number of other schools including MD. Ours came a little late. There were clearly more people than before. Even the ministry of health came to witness! I assumed that they came to get some ideas from the younger generation.

The permanent secretary of MOH did his speech and then the debate began. It was the most interesting debate I’ve ever seen before. Musa was the 1^st speaker but then stayed quiet for the rest of the debate. Helmi was LOUD and Hayati likes making hand gestures, movements and that entire sort when she talks. She was REALLY hilarious resulting to the sound of giggling coming from the audience. But no matter how terrible they did, Helmi made an outstanding finish, “You don’t go into the surgery ward so you can cut yourself up and suddenly find that there’s actually nothing wrong with you.”

Our team was great, Yusuf made a wonderful start, Julius did great and Jarrod made history. It was no wonder he had also won the “Best Speaker Award”. What these guys did was superb magic. They turned the tide on top of the opposing team.

Later that day, SMSA, the host school did a presentation. Personally, I don’t find it very entertaining – no offense.

To sum it all up, I think that the whole debate club and the English department are the real winners and deserve as much respect as the debating team. Without them, they team wouldn’t be what they are now. They have given their fullest support. That huge trophy is probably resting neatly somewhere in the school’s cabinet.

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