Phl math team's performance hailed

MANILA, Philippines - The Mathematics Trainers Guild-Philippines (MTG-Philippines) hailed the five-member Philippine team that posted an impressive performance in the just concluded 52th International Math Olympiad (IMO), regarded by the world’s educators as the most prestigious and the toughest math olympiad for high schools students, held in Amsterdam last week. Dr. Simon Chua, president of MTG-Philippines, said that the group had witnessed the steady hard work poured by Henry Jefferson Morco of Chiang Kai Shek College, Vance Eldric Go of St. Jude Catholic School, Kenneth Tan Co of Philippine Science High School-Main Campus in Quezon City, Russelle Guadalupe of Valenzuela City Science High School, and Carmela Antoinette Lao, an incoming freshman at the prestigious Masachussetts Institute of Technology in Boston this September, to improve their math skills through a period of several years. Morco, Go and Lao won a bronze medal each in the Amsterdam IMO. “I commend the achievements of Carmela, Vance and Henry in the IMO. Their latest feat epitomizes the growing standard of Philippine mathematical education,” Chua said. All five members of the Philippine team are so-called “MTG Kids”, who have undergone intensive but still enjoyable math training by MTG-Philippines, and sent to many international math olympiads in the past several years to hone their math skills. Lao, it will be recalled, had ended the Philippines’ 21-year medal drought from the IMO when she won a silver medal in last year’s 51st IMO held in Astana, Kazakhstan. Lao’s bronze medal, it was learned, is her second from the IMO. The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is the oldest, the most prestigious, and the most difficult of all mathematics competitions for high school students.