PSHSS students reap awards at 55th IChO

by Davis Magpantay & Kaleena So

ZURICH, Switzerland — Four Philippine Science High School (PSHS) students bagged three bronze medals and an honorable mention at the 55th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO).

PSHS–Main Campus’ very own Kiersten Gene Calubaquib of Batch 2023 brought home an Honorable Mention at the contest.

“It truly is such an honor and privilege to be able to represent my country and even garner an award for it in such a prestigious competition,” Calubaquib shared.

Joining Calubaquib in the Philippine team are Lemuel Acosta (PSHS-CLC ‘23), Mohammad Nur Casib (PSHS-CMC ‘25), and Gelraycs Jules Fornan (PSHS-SRC ‘24), who each won a bronze medal.

The IChO is a highly acclaimed contest for the world’s most talented chemistry students at the secondary level. Each year, countries select a team of four students as their chemical prowess is tested through a theoretical exam and a series of practical experiments.

IChO 2023 was held from July 16 to 25 at ETH Zurich with a two-day competition proper, one day allotted for each of the theoretical and practical exams.

Students were faced with a 10-question theoretical exam and three parts for the practical portion: qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, and organic synthesis.

The team’s training was supervised by international and national university chemistry professors and instructors, with their practical skills training held in the Organic Chemistry Lab at the Philippine Institute of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

According to Acosta, this year’s set of problems and experiments had a good mix of fairly simple to extremely challenging and time-consuming theoretical problems.

“The most challenging problems for the theoretical exam were related to biochemistry,” Acosta stated. “I could say that a lot [of contestants were] really challenged judging by the statistics they have shown.”

Caluaquib expressed his content as the theoretical problems this year didn’t stray far from the topics and question formats in the preparatory problem.

“A lot of my studying came to fruition here. It was still unavoidable for there to be difficult problems, so time management was very crucial in completing the exam,” Calubaquib remarked.

For Acosta, their coaches contributed to the majority of his preparations, especially when it came to the practical portion of the exam.

However, individual preparation remained an important part of their success.

“I started preparing specifically for IChO when it was announced that I was going to be one of the Philippine delegates. I did it by focusing more on solving previous IChO problems rather than usually learning about advanced topics in chemistry,” Fornan said.

Calubaquib also emphasized the importance of understanding the given preparatory problems and fields of advanced difficulty as these are guaranteed to appear in the exams.

On the competition’s free days, the delegation was able to visit ETH Zurich’s laboratories, as well as the facilities of Lonza and the Paul Scherer Institute. The team also went on tours of popular Swiss destinations like Bern, Lucerne, and Mount Rigi.

“The whole experience was so refreshing. The atmosphere was so clean and fresh; it was really an eye-opening experience exchanging and immersing oneself in different cultures,” Calubaquib shared.

IChO 2024 is set to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The country’s delegation will be selected through the next Philippine National Chemistry Olympiad.