ILOILO City – A Grade 8 student of St. Joseph School Iloilo Inc. brought honor to this city and the Philippines by winning medals at the Asian Science and Mathematics Olympiad for Primary and Secondary Schools (ASMOPSS 12) in Bangli Regency, Bali, Indonesia recently.
Gihun Ng Yoo was one of the members of the 14-man Philippine team who competed in Indonesia. Two of them competed for Primary Science, six for Primary Math, two for Secondary Math, and four for Secondary Science.
Other participants were from Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Tajikistan.
A member of Asian MathSci League Inc. (AMSLI), Yoo hurdled two qualifying rounds, both online – the elimination round and the national round – before the international finals in Indonesia.
Yoo competed in Primary Math and won a bronze medal for the Theoretical Round – Individual Event while their team won second runner-up in Exploration Round.
“He is the only one from Iloilo. This is history-making as they are the first batch of students to compete internationally after the two-year hiatus in the in-person international competitions,” said Yoo’s math teacher and coach, Irish Mae Palomo.
The Theoretical Round – Individual Event, is a three-hour long competition; each contestant did his or her best to answer challenging questions independently while the Exploration Round is also a three-hour battle with math and science questions combined.
“It feels great to bring honor to our country,” said Yoo, who described his experience competing in the international math competition as kind of fun and enjoyable.
Dr. Pamela Ng Yoo, meanwhile, is a proud mother whom Yoo described as her No. 1 supporter and fan.
“Proud gid ako nga makahatag siya dungog sa aton tanan,” Dr. Yoo expressed.
She shared that she noticed her son’s love for numbers when they went to a toy store when he was a toddler and instead of toys, he picked rulers, calculators and anything with numbers.
His math skills were later discovered when he transferred to St. Joseph School Iloilo Inc. during fourth grade wherein he got a perfect school in math in the entrance examinations.
From then, the school helped him enhanced his skills through trainings and he was sent to local math competitions representing their school.
Before pandemic, Yoo also competed in other international math tilts in Singapore and Hongkong.
“The school helped him in the preparation for the contest through the aid of all the math teachers for the review sessions and the moral support of the whole Josephian community,” said Palomo.
Dr. Yoo added that outside the world of math, his son who is a middle child is a just like any other students in school who talks with friends at the hallway or play.
“Kon uyon niya nga mag-join sa competition, gina-support ko gid siya because support will make or break a child,” Dr. Yoo said./PN
