The Mathematics Trainers’ Guild, Philippines (MTG) headed by Dr. Eduardo O. Dela Cruz Jr. and Roberto J. Degolacion came home with flying colors after having reaped silver and bronze in the individual category and fourth place in the over-all ranking during the recently concluded Third SEAMEO Mathematics Olympiad 2005 held on May 16-20, 2005 at Penang, Malaysia. The contest was participated in by ten (10) SEAMEO member-countries namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The laudable achievement is the first ever for the Philippines since it has joined the biennial Mathematics Olympiad in 1999 (First SEAMO - 1999, Second SEAMO - 2001, in 2003 no competition held due to SARS epidemic). This commendable development came after the Department of Education (DepEd) endorsed to the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute (SEI) to recommend members that will constitute Philippine Team for this year SEAMO. Therefore, DOST-SEI entrusted MTG to fill-in participants for the Philippine Team just this year. This success reflects Dr. Simon L. Chua’s passion to bring mathematics to greater heights in the Philippines. In the past two competitions, the Department of Education requested other known private mathematics organization to take charge of training and sending contestants to the said contest but came home empty-handed.

The cheers and standing ovation go to the honor reapers Jon Henri Ma of Trinity Christian School, Bacolod City, silver awardee and John Garret Go of St. Stephen’s High School, broze awardee for Individual category. The coveted recognition was contributed much by other Philippine team members Nellie Margaret Chua (youngest contestant for this year's SEAMO) of Chiang Kai Shek College and Abegail Ceralde of Zamboanga Chong Hua High School who helped elevate the Philippine to the Fourth Place for the over-all team results.