On Cdt. Absalon...

[celeni]

It was so unfair on so many levels.

Monday, 29 Oct: It was the day after the explosion that was NDC. After a quaint breakfast at the PNKY Café down at Leonard Road (incidentally, that was were my entire family stayed for the weekend), it amused me how the Philippine Star's headline had b'gay on it. It's short for baranggay, but I know the shorthand for that was b'ggy, and not b'gay, but if b'gay is the new beat of the town, why not?

After checking my overflowing mailbox using the WiFi of the café, I referred back to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the front page greeted me with the words: unrequited love, cadet [link].

I read the article. OMG. This was the cadet who won the impromptu speaking competition at the recently concluded 9th National Debate Championship. I wouldn't say I was directly responsible for getting him there, but of course, as most Filipinos, I'd like to take part in the claim. I was obviously part of the story, that was largely ignored in that newspaper article.

First of all, the NDC impromptu speaking competitions is as impromptu as it gets. Let me walk you through the process.

Friday, 26 Oct: I was watching Anna and Aaron's semifinal round about a cross-legs policy of women in Columbia to their insurgent husbands. And then all of a sudden, I received an SMS from Nicolo Cabrera, assigning me to judge for the public speaking competition. Haha. Talk about impromptu. I actually almost wanted to join the competition. But I agreed free of bribery, except for more airtime since as "deputized head of public speaking" I get to do the announcements regarding public speaking. Big woot. Oh! And we thought of the preliminary topic: "Which two NDC participants would you like to see in Big Brother's house?" Cute. For the <44 participants who tried to get into finals.

I judged eleven people for the preliminaries. Some were boring, some were drunk, some mentioned people I knew, some people I don't know, but two people in my room stood out. Cdt. Absalon (see picture above) and Benj Espina (see atheista.net). Cdt. Absalon had this quirky manner of telling stories, very natural and very engaging, and Benj Espina's vanity just uh... reminded me of myself.

Tie-back: I put Cdt. Absalon on the finals round. And since Vincent Cabreza didn't bother to look for me to interview me on this piece, I'm telling you now.

Saturday, 27 Oct: While waiting for the debate finals decision, I got the floor to handle public speaking finals, once again, impromptu! There were seven finalists and I only had two topics, so I wound out the judges to whip out some more. Dani thought of incorporating something about Al Gore so we came up with "What's your inconvenient truth?" which conveniently became Cdt. Absalon's topic. Other topics were:

• Who's cadet's hat are you taking off (something to that effect, because you have to kiss the cadet who's hat you steal)?
• Aside from your own contingent, which institution's contingent would you like to take part of?
• Would you rather be Yves Aquino (UP Manila) or Victor Baguilat (DLSU)? (Both are prominent and well-loved gays in the debate community and were the usual response to the preliminaries question regarding big brother).
• If Britney Spears was your adjudicator, what more would you give? (topic courtesy of Biboy, my debate partner, go UPD F!)
• What is your inconvenient truth?
• I am a flower because ... ?
• Who is the best debate prostitute and who is his/her debate pimp?

So why did Cdt. Absalon win? He wore his heart on his sleeves. Hands down, I was standing up and clapping while he was speaking, even my parents (who surprised me) was amused by his speech, his connection with the audience was amazing. He talked about this girl from UST (FYI, this girl joined the NDC public speaking last year, which I also judged - she didn't make it :P) and the delivery was well-timed and engaging.

He definitely won fair and square. Maybe even the attention he's getting is fair. When I won the ESU public speaking competition in IIDC, I got a press release on the Philippine Star. When Patricia won (before she got her columns), her article was on the lifestyle section. But as a cadet, this guy gets no less than the frontpage. Tell me why I shouldn't be jealous.

So might as well leech off the publicity. Somehow, I know, I can never do what he has done, to go that public about feelings... and even about rejection. I guess that's what makes his speech so heartfelt. He was not pretentious. He shared details of his love as a matter-of-fact. He knew how to minimise remorse yet at the same time optimise sympathy. Oh well, who can blame him? Even if last year's NDC is still " best NDC ever", it's still safe to conclude that this NDC is still love (in every sense of the word).

[Multiply.] More details to follow.

[The photograph above was taken by my dad, edited by me.]