Through the Manila Sports Council (Masco) headed by Ali, the city also established links with other local government sports councils to widen the scope of Local Government Unit involvement in providing new avenues for recruitment, identification, and talent exposure for the youth.

"It has always been said that the youth is the hope of the nation," Mayor Atienza said. "That is why City Hall is focusing on the youth by providing them with endeavors that will guide their path toward becoming assets of society."

Masco’s partnership with LGUs paved the way for the creation of the first MY Games National Invitational, a week-long event held last October which assembled more than 2,500 of the best young athletes from the country’s 33 major cities, municipalities, and provinces.

Championships in athletics, swimming, football, taekwondo and little league softball and baseball were disputed even as entries from the United States, Hawaii, Canada, and Britain also saw action.

The Atienzas bared that many LGUs have also expressed their intention to host the meet, which saw the rise of young athletes such as 15-year-old Laguna teenager Maria Cecilia Constantino who won five gold medals in athletics.

The competitions were actually an offshoot of the MT Games, which held its fourth edition in April. about 10,000 athletes from practically all the 897 barangays, six congressional districts and 130 public and private schools in Manila saw action.

A mammoth field of over 50,000 runners made up the starting field in the third Manila Marathon. The race is expected to clinch a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records with the sheer number of finishers surpassing the 38,706 mark of the Centennial Boston Marathon.

"Not only did the Manila Marathon symbolize unity and solidarity among Filipinos, but more significantly, it served as a tool in tapping social consciousness to help less privileged children in the countryside," said the young Atienza.

Registration fees for the run were waived by the Masco in exchange for donations of canned goods from participants to benefit underfed children in Antique in Western Visayas and Kalinga in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

Capping a banner year for Manila sports, the best differently-abled athletes from Southeast Asia gathered at the Rizal Memorial Stadium earlier this month in the Third Asean Para Games which regional power Thailand dominated.

"If we call our athletes who competed in the Southeast Asian Games our modern-day heroes, we should call our differently-abled athletes in the Asean Para Games our modern day super heroes," Ali said after the RP bets finished fifth.