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With an aim to broaden the minds of the youth by complementing the information they’ve learned from the classroom with knowledge from a professional perspective, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Ateneo Debate Society (ADS) held the 2nd KAF Issue Forum on November 6 at the Ateneo Graduate School in Makati.

The forum is a major part of the Inquirer-2bU! Inter-school Debate Championship (IISDC) 2004, an annual tournament that hopes to continually develop high school debating and promote social awareness and responsibility.

The topic for this year’s KAF Issue Forum, population and poverty, touched a very recent social issue to which high school students could directly observe and relate. Dr. Alejandro Herrin, an expert in economics and population, gave a lecture on “Population and Poverty: An Assessment of Philippine Development.” Herrin dismissed various myths about overpopulation and exposed real issues that were supported by statistics and economic theory. The discussion offered a clearer perspective of the action needed to deter poverty in the Philippines.

An exhibition debate by the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and College of St. Benilde followed the lecture of Herrin. Using the Asians format, they argued the motion: This House Believes That The Two-Child Policy is in the best interest of the Philippines. Points for both affirmative and negative sides were a mix of issues from the lecture and original ideas that spawned from the debaters’ research and analysis.

IISDC is the largest gathering of secondary school students who come together to compete in a debate tournament. This year, around 29 high school debate societies around the country participated in the event. In as much as the tournament is patterned to foster critical thinking and hone public speaking among high school debaters, the Ateneo Debate Society also aspired to forge this talent with a sense of social responsibility.