From February 25-26, 2022, 167 delegates from SISC, South Mansfield College (SMC), Stonyhurst Southville International School-Batangas (SSIS-B), Stonyhurst Southville International School-Malarayat (SSIS-M), and Asian SEED Academy of Technology (ASAT) attended the second SGEN Model United Nations (MUN) Online Conference hosted by the SISC MUN Club, tackling global issues of sustainability and the current situation of Ukraine and Russia via Zoom and Discord.
MUN is a student simulation of real-life United Nations (UN) procedures. Its participants, referred to as delegates, portray diplomats of various UN member states as they draft and debate solutions to international problems. The extracurricular program aims to foster public speaking, decision-making, and global-mindedness in school youth.
Delegates acted out diplomacy in eight UN committees for the conference, five of which are new additions to SGEN MUN. These are the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and General Assembly First Committee - Disarmament and International Security Committee (GA1) for the Basic Level; the Historical Security Council (HSC) for the Advanced Level; and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the only special committee.
The SISC MUN Club Secretariat alongside several SGEN chairs planned the conference’s topics and committees aligned with the theme of “Sustaining nations for next generations” which focused on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an initiative laid out by the UN itself.
“We’re [highlighting how we can] continue conversations about sustainable development, involving youth involvement, youth leadership, and youth participation,” said SISC MUN Director-General Sir Jude Cuntapay, who desired deeper discussions on the SDGs considering the challenges the COVID-19 Pandemic brought to achieving them.
Unlike the first SGEN MUN held last year, this year’s event was not divided into a Pre-Conference and a Main Conference. Sir Jude explained that this is for other SGEN schools that had gained more MUN experience since last year to have more independent training. This year’s conference was also the first major SGEN event that made use of online messaging platform Discord for participants to easily communicate beyond Zoom.
'New discussions, arguments'
After a set of welcoming remarks from SGEN Communications Director, Mr. Daniel Steel, Executive Director and ‘Chief Mermaid’ of Save Philippine Seas Ms. Anna R. Oposa — who is also a delegate of The Philippines for the UNEP — gave her Keynote Speech. With sea-related puns, Ms. Oposa talked about her experience training promising young leaders and underscored that an educated youth are today’s society’s game-changers.
Proceeding her was SISC MUN Secretary-General Hyuk Jin ‘Richard’ Park, who took the stage to assure all delegates that “SGEN MUN 2022 will bring to life new discussions, arguments, ideas, debates, and so many more things that are completely different from the SGEN MUN last year.“
Throughout the following committee sessions, delegates across all committees openly argued out their points relating to their country stance in a diplomatic manner following parliamentary procedure. The SC and HSC of the Advanced Level both dealt with major peace and security issues, one dedicated to recent events while the other to past crises. Rather than contesting over one whole resolution like the rest of the Basic Level committees, they wrote and debated clause after clause until an entire resolution was formed.
After completing resolutions that took weeks to research for the first day, both SCs experienced an unprecedented feat that was initially announced by the Secretary-General: they were to draft a resolution on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine which had hitherto begun yesterday. The SCs merged together into one assembly to formalize a response to Russia’s actions, and the delegates and chairs in each had to extensively prepare for this shift in less than six hours overnight. This decision by the SGEN MUN Secretariat was made to reflect what the real-life SC was currently undertaking at that moment.
Secretary-General Park explained, “On most conferences . . . we don’t discuss ongoing issues mainly because situations can change at all times, but because of the interest of all the SGEN schools as well as comments we have received, we decided that we would be implementing the situation of Ukraine and Russia on the spot.”
“[T]he specific changes we were able to bring up to [the SCs represented] how the international relations and how the events that we are actually experiencing in our daily life can change as viably as possible,” Deputy Secretary-General Junyeong ‘Andy’ Park added.
Intense debate ensued the next day, with updates on the Russo-Ukrainian situation given every 15 minutes. A completed resolution that demanded Russia to withdraw their troops from Ukraine submitted by HSC delegate of the United States of America Yi Lynn Hwang passed and was recognized as one of the most commendable acts of this conference.
Another first for SGEN MUN, the ICJ committee was exclusive only to SISC students. ICJ advocates defended their sides in international cases through legal proceedings distinct from usual UN procedures. More similar to courtroom trials than UN General Assembly meetings, advocates presented their evidence, flung out objections, and called in witnesses in order to persuade the chairs to not give the guilty verdict.
Through all these, chairs and delegates alike made good use of Discord, using it as an enhanced and convenient communication tool when not in parliamentary procedure and further bringing different SGEN delegates together. As a first for SGEN events, Discord was well received by the conference’s participants. SC delegate of UAE Kun Woo ‘Eden’ Kim praised its reliability, while HRC delegate of Japan Eloisa Lynn Aldueza said that “now it’s pretty organized and we can understand better now because we’re divided.”
SISC bagged the most awards in this conference, with nine of the 18 awarded to Monarchs. SSIS-B and SSIS-M followed with five and four awards respectively. All delegates regardless of school received certificates of participation.
The drive to learn
SGEN chairs and delegates took the great opportunity to once again interact with their fellow peers from Southville’s sister schools. They were delighted to not only work with each other in acting diplomacy, but also to strengthen their bonds due to similar passions. "I’ve noticed that we are all here for one common purpose which is to first learn and discuss pressing [issues]. . . . One thing that unites us, it would definitely be our drive to learn and our drive to want to do something new or want to embrace something different." Secretary-General Park claims.
HSC Vice Chair Marie Gavrielle ‘Abby’ Opiña from SMC praised that the entire SGEN MUN Secretariat was “not even just [a community of] collaboration, it's almost like a family, we’re a family here in MUN and it's so nice because they’re very welcoming and they don't make you feel like you're left out.”
ICJ’s Vice Chair Michael Lumbera Jr. from SSIS-M lauded the experience of his fellow SISC chairs, and UNEP Chair Anne Guamos from SSIS-B mentioned that “this conference really brought us all together compared to before when we just [knew] that we’re sister schools but we don’t really know anyone from those schools. . . .”
As face-to-face classes are slowly returning, the SISC MUN Club Secretariat is hopeful for a live SGEN MUN Conference to happen very soon. Secretary-General Park said he would consider its face-to-face continuation as a “blessing and miracle,” while ICJ Chair Neel Sharma welcomed the concept, saying that it “would be so, so marvelous . . . as we have continued this and its in its second year already, we have persisted with a lot of changes as well.”
Sir Jude, on the other hand, hoped for the different SGEN MUN Clubs’ dream for an SGEN MUN conference to be spearheaded by other schools within the network to become a reality with the continuous help of SISC. Sir Jude concluded, “In the near future, whatever will be the agreement across SGEN schools, SISC MUN [is] very open to collaborate and very willing to help [with whatever the direction] the conference would be like.”
The SISC MUN Club is continually looking for new delegates to join its family. The group meets every Thursday from 5:00-6:30 PM. For Inquiries, contact siscmun@southville.edu.ph or Sir Jude Cuntapay via email at jude_cuntapay@southville.edu.ph.
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