Speaking of public speaking

Two Saturdays ago, we had a very busy and exciting afternoon judging the finals of the selection process for the Philippine representative to the International Public Speaking Contest (IPSC) in London this May, an annual event organized by the English Speaking Union (ESU).

The competition for the sole slot was handled very ably, as usual, by the University of the Philippines Debate Society, which ran a day-long elimination round that trimmed a field of around 40 aspirants from all over the country to a group of six finalists. This year — the ESU’s 93rd and the IPSC’s 30th — the local or national aspirants were asked to speak on “Lessons for the Future.”

Participants from the ESU’s 53 member-countries will be in London from May 23 to 27 for the competition, and for tours and workshops that will introduce them to British culture and sharpen their speaking skills. The grand final will be held at the headquarters of HSBC, the IPSC’s main sponsor. (The Philippine eliminations were sponsored by HSBC, Shell, and the Inquirer, aside of course from the UPDS and ESU-Philippines. Pilipinas Shell, through the generosity of Ed Chua, has traditionally donated the airline ticket of our IPSC representative.)

I was joined on the judging panel by fellow officers and members of ESU-Philippines: our chairman Ambassador Cesar Bautista, president and Ateneo dean Dr. Marlu Vilches, and lawyer Katrina Legarda. We were very keen on listening to the finalists and making a good choice, given a reputation to protect: since we started joining the IPSC less than a decade ago, we have already produced two world champions: the columnist and TV producer Patricia Evangelista (2004) and the then-Philippine Science High School senior Gian Karlo Dapul (2008).

Each finalist was given five minutes to make his or her speech, followed by a round of questions from the panel. The presentations were impressive — ranging from the philosophical to the personal to the comic — but of course, in the end, we could choose just one, and we were happy to come to a quick and unanimous decision.

This year’s Philippine champion and our official entry to the IPSC in London is Germaine Ang Chuabio, a communication arts and accountancy sophomore at De La Salle University, who spoke on what it has been like to have a special child as a twin sister, and how society should learn to cope with such situations. Her alternate — in the event that, for any reason, she can’t make it to London — will be the runner-up, UP business administration senior Elfermin Mallari Jr., who addressed the growing role of creative artists and thinkers in business.

The other finalists included, in alphabetical order, UP business economics senior Angelo Paolo Kalaw; UST nursing junior Carl Anly Ortiz; UP psychology sophomore Regina Isabelle Jaimee Ranada; and UP business administration and accountancy sophomore John Lenard Robles. We wish all of these young people well, as they will very likely go on to make a mark in their schools and beyond.

Meanwhile, my fellow ESU-Philippines members and I — a cohort that includes Krip Yuson and Anglophile Ed Maranan — will do our best to coach Germaine into another winning performance. Unlike the case in previous years, IPSC participants will be taking on a separate topic — “Words Are Not Enough” — for the global event.

The guidelines state that “Speakers may interpret the theme in any way they see fit, but they should not use the theme as their title. In choosing their title, participants should not be afraid to be provocative, hard-hitting or humorous, as long as their intention is constructive and the speech is not offensive. Speakers must avoid speeches that are likely to be perceived as highly political.”

This means that Germaine will have to craft and master a whole new speech, pitched to an international audience. The challenge here, as always, will be in saying something that will stand out above everyone else’s presentation — a speech with global appeal, and yet rooted in Philippine realities and experience.

Given that we’ve already produced two IPSC world champions, we Pinoys might have cause to claim that we’re great, natural public speakers, and certainly quite a few Filipinos are — or were, like Ferdinand Marcos and his nemesis Ninoy Aquino (I remember listening to both as a high school student and being mesmerized by their ability to speak fluidly, without notes). There’s no doubt that we, as a people, love to talk and to give our opinion of everything from the Middle East crisis to the love life of our movie and sports stars — an hour of AM radio will tell you that.

But I suspect that we have quite a way to go to do the kind of public speaking that seems effortless, but has, in fact, been well thought out. Too often we rely on memorized scripts, delivered stiffly, or otherwise we read off the printed page, again without the kind of emotional tone that conveys sincerity and conviction. That could be because we’ve been trained to equate public speaking with declamation, or the recitation of memorized poems (another art in itself all too often practiced with wooden grimness and determination). The best public speakers are those who can think on their feet, prepared to adjust to the character and temper of the audience, to reach out and to grab their hearts and minds.

This is why the IPSC has a question-and-answer component at the end of the participant’s five-minute talk, during which the judges can throw questions at the speaker to gauge his or her mastery of the subject.

As the IPSC Handbook points out, “Most ‘real world’ public speakers will, at some point, be faced with questions about what they have said. They need to be able to answer those questions confidently, reinforcing or defending their original statement, or clarifying their original statement where it has been misunderstood or taken out of context.

“As part of the competition, each speaker’s ability to answer questions is tested. At the end of each speech, audience members and adjudicators are invited to put brief questions to the speaker. These may ask for clarification or expansion on a point, or seek to know the speaker’s views on a related issue not covered in their speech. Although questions are not meant to be combative, they may sometimes ask the speaker to justify their views.”

While this accounts for just 15 percent of the total score, I have to admit that it’s a much more important factor for me than the figure might suggest, because it’s where I can catch a real glimpse of the speaker’s mind at work. (As I often remind my students, I don’t care much for term papers with a dozen quotations from other writers or critics embedded in them — I want to see them make their own arguments, in their own ways.)

Here’s to Germaine’s success in London, and again, to all the finalists, my warmest congratulations.

* * *

E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com and visit my blog at www.penmanila.net.