COTABATO region means "serious business" here as it brings about 130 athletes to serve its strong aspiration for the overall supremacy of the 13th Milo Little Olympics Mindanao which gets into action Saturday at Don Gregorio Pelaez Sports Center.

Tangub City, otherwise known as "The the Garden City", also came loaded with its finest talents in elementary and secondary levels as well as newcomer Ateneo de Davao. Yet, Milo Sports Mindanao area manager Megdonio R. Llamera still picked "The Home of Champions" Corpus Christi School in Cagayan de Oro as the top favorite.

For updates from around the country, follow Sun.Star on Twitter

"We don't know if Cotabato can mount a surprise kay sobra gatos man ilang entries probably seeing action in all events. But Corpus Christi is Corpus Christi. Sila pa gihapon akong nakita nga adunay igong kusog sa atong tinuig nga Milo Little Olympics," the indefatigable Llamera told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro at the height of Cheer Dance Contest and first ever Search for Milo Miss Little Olympics that enlivened Friday's opening rites of the 12-sport competition.

No less than newly-crowned Miss Kagay-an 2009 winner Leira Monique Pabito came to grace the Search for Miss Little Olympics, the first since the 13-year existence of the Mindanao-wide Milolympics.

Around 120 schools from all over Mindanao were able to beat the Milo's "extended deadline" for submission of entries, or way down 30 from last year's 150 school participants.

Even the enforcement of new guidelines which require athletes to produce birth certificates duly authenticated by the National Statistics Office (NSO), the Milolympics was still able to hit over the 100-plateau of registered entries. And this, Llamera had mainly attributed to the attraction impacted by "another first" staging of Milo Little Olympics National Finals on Oct. 23 to 25 in Cebu City.

"Dako gyod ang impact nga aduna nay National Finals atong Milo. Gasto sa NSO apan daghan gyod ang naningkamot nga maka-apas in the last minute," Llamera said.

Majority of the Milo events such as athletics, lawn tennis, sepak takraw, scrabble, swimming and volleyball will be played at the newly-refurbished Pelaez Sports Center.

Other venues are the Shuttle Square in brgy. Gusa for badminton, MOGCHS Canteen (2nd floor) for chess, Rosevale School for football, Corpus Christi gym for gymnastics, Capitol Tennis Court (also at PSC) for lawn tennis, SM City Cagayan de Oro Car Park for table tennis and Liceo de Cagayan University gym for taekwondo.