CALAMBA CITY, Laguna – The city has scheduled its annual Rizal Quiz Bee, or “Talinong Rizal” tilt this year, which is open to high school and college teams from Laguna’s schools, colleges and universities, on June 14 at the Museo ni Rizal (formerly Rizal Shrine) here.
The City Cultural Affairs, Tourism and Sports Development Department (CATSDD) said the competition is one of the highlights of the week-long festival celebration from June 12 to 19 of the city’s 5th “Buhayani” Festival themed, “Buhay na Bayani, Buhay ng Bayani”.
The festival is aimed at perpetuating homage to Calamba’s illustrious son and National Hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal, on his 157th birth anniversary on June 19.
In an interview Wednesday, CATSDD Rizal Quiz Bee coordinator Sony Aguilar said they expect more competing teams from the secondary and college levels with each team composed of three members and a teacher-coach. Registration will start at 9 a.m. on June 14 at the Rizal Shrine.
Aguilar said that the quiz rules and guidelines have already been disseminated so that the competing teams would be informed ahead in engaging about four rounds in each category for the easy, average, difficult questions and the “clincher” category as tie-breaker where several questions may be raised to break the tie.
He said that the annual tilt would encourage the youths and students to know more about the life and works as well as the heroism of Dr. Rizal in a competitive arena besides purely classroom learning and history books.
He also expects broader participation from competing teams, this time around including interested Department of Education (DepEd) public and private school history teachers and students.
Aguilar also said that as the qualifying rounds are conducted, those non-competing teams including school non-quiz bee contingents are given the opportunity to tour the “Museo ni Rizal” so they can enhance their knowledge on the Calamba-born hero and martyr right at his birth house which is now a national shrine and museum.
He also expects competing teams to answer the questions in writing on the answer board as soon as the Quizmaster reads the question twice and gives the “GO” signal for the 10 seconds answering time limit.
The CATSDO rules and guidelines assigns the corresponding correct answers for the Easy question with 1 point; Average, 2 points; Difficult, 3 points which shall be tallied for the contending teams with highest scores and Clincher round tie-breaker with 5 points, as the case may be.
The Top 20 teams which obtain the highest points will automatically qualify for the Semi-final Round where the competing teams have to answer 5 questions in each round for the Easy, Average and Difficult question categories.
The Top 3 teams will automatically qualify for the Final Round where 10 difficult questions are asked and the highest scores are ranked accordingly for the Champion, 2nd and 3rd Places.
Prizes are at stake for the winning High School and College level teams with cash of PHP35,000; PHP25,000 and PHP20,000 for the champion, 1st and 2nd placers plus the corresponding trophies and medals for the winning team members.
The CATSDD, however prohibits any quiz bee team member or teacher-coach related by affinity or consanguinity up to the 3rd degree to any CCATSDD personnel, “Talinong Rizal 2018” Committee Members, and Board of Judges from joining the contest. (Saul Pa-a/PNA)
