Silver medalists Sean Eugene Chua (left) and Daryll Carlsten Ko, bronze medalist Deanne Gabrielle Algenio, and team leader Kerish Villegas (right) in Greece. (Photo courtesy of MTG)
Three Filipino students from different schools in Metro Manila emerged as victors during a recent international math competition held in Rhodes, Greece.
The Mathematics Trainers Guild Philippines (MTG) said in a statement on Tuesday that Daryll Carlsten Ko of St. Stephen High School in Manila, Sean Eugene Chua of Xavier School in San Juan, and Deanne Gabrielle Algenio of the Makati Science High School won in the 22nd Junior Balkan Mathematical Olympiad (JBMO).
Ko and Chua were awarded silver medals, while Algenio was awarded a bronze medal after the contest, which was conducted from June 19 to June 24 in Greece.
“We congratulate our three contestants for winning medals in the math competition. This is another honor for our country,” MTG President Dr. Isidro Aguilar said.
The MTG, which is a group of math experts who prepares students for international math competitions, supervised over the training of the three students
According to the contestants, this year’s contest was not a walk in the park as they were faced with challenging questions.
“This year’s JBMO was a mixture of handleable and challenging problems. Some of them only required a direct flow of logic while the others needed very specific observations in order to advance in the problem,” Ko said.
“It was not easy to think of ideas that could help us make progress in solving each problem,” Ko added.
For Chua and Algenio, the problems were mind-boggling, requiring them to be a little bit creative.
“Although the problems seemed straightforward, they were designed in such a way that we were challenged to really think out of the box while being pushed to the limit,” Algenio noted.
“Challenging, brain provoking, mind boggling problems but nothing we Pinoy mathletes cannot hurdle,” Algenio also said.
Team leader Kerish Villegas accompanied the three students in the competition. Other participants in the 22nd JBMO were students from Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Republic of Moldova, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, and Turkmenistan. /kga