Filipino law students compete in Harvard

Two Filipino law students, Janeca Naboya and Gian Miranda, attended last month the largest development conference in Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The conference theme was “The End of Development? Why International Development Must Adapt or Fail.”

Miranda is a product of the Ateneo law school while Naboya is a senior student at the Lyceum College of Law.

The conference gave them a chance to meet world leaders such as Former President of Mexico Felipe Calderon and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and president of Liberia. Participants were able to engage  panels with development experts from global organizations such as United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the United States Agency for International Development. As a corollary to the conference proper, Miranda and Naboya participated in a case competition where they had to think of ingenious and creative ways to address the developmental problems in Haiti. They successfully presented and defended their ideas to a panel of experts and were  cited among the top four presenters.

This month, the two were also awarded in Geneva, Switzerland by the International Labor Organization for their short film on labor advocacy. Miranda, a TOYM awardee,  is a graduate of the Ateneo de Manila Law School. He is the president and founder of the Intellectual Property (IP) Society of Ateneo. He was also one of the Ten Outstanding Students of De La Salle University in 2008.

Naboya  is currently an editor with the Lyceum Law Journal and member of the Moot Court Society.  She was chosen by the Office of the President-National Youth Commission to represent the Philippines in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ Youth Summit 2012 held in Cambodia.