Of the 70 Filipino boxers who have competed in the Olympics, eight began their careers in gyms in Bago City.
There, boxers train on punching bags under the blaring of giant, old fans, seeking some relief from the oppressive tropical heat.
The most recent Bagot Olympian, Rio 2016 light flyweight Roger Raddon, was not one of the five boxers who qualified for the Paris Games, leaving the city eager for a new poster boy.
The five-strong boxing team heading to the French capital consists of men's featherweight Carlo Parham, men's middleweight Eumir Marcial who has been described as a similar character to Pacquiao, women's flyweight Aria Villegas, women's featherweight Nesty Petecio and women's middleweight Elgie Basiadan.
“Life here is tough and there are limited job opportunities,” said coach Larry Semyano, a Bago native who fought in the lightweight division at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Ignacio Denira, executive assistant for sports at the city government, said they all worship eight-time world champion Manny Pacquiao.
“I hope to be selected for the national team to compete in tournaments overseas and win medals,” said 17-year-old AJ Vicente, one of Semillano's promising players.
Bago lightweight boxer Leopoldo Cantancio earned his Olympic streak by reaching the round of 16 at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. He also competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Bago's athletes have since won one silver and one bronze Olympic medal, and eight of the country's 14 Olympic medals have come in boxing: three silver and five bronze.
Semyano said there was a “70 percent” chance that Vicente, a right-handed flyweight boxer who won a bronze medal at last year's Philippine national championships, would end up on the national team.
But to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics or the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, “he'll need to eat more rice”, the coach added.
“The technique is there,” Semillano told AFP. “What we are trying to develop now is his power.”
AJ's father, Jose Vicente, 50, used to cut sugarcane for 10 pesos (about 17 cents) a day as a young man and fight in village-level bago tournaments for small prizes.
“Farming is hard work,” Jose, who now works as a handyman at a provincial hospital, told AFP from his small wood-and-bamboo house surrounded by sugarcane fields on the city's outskirts. “I don't want my son to have to go through the same thing.”
“My father wanted to be a boxer and I decided to help him achieve that dream,” his son said.
Children can join the training program starting at age 7. Semillano cooks for the young boxers while she looks after her 2-year-old daughter, Sydney, while they do the laundry in the yard.
Last year, three Bago underage boxers trained by Semillano qualified to compete in the country's amateur boxing pool.
Funded by the Bago city government, the program began in the mid-1960s and bore fruit in 1992 when light flyweight Roel Velasco won a bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics.
His younger brother, Mansueto Velasco, did even better, winning the silver medal in the light flyweight division in Atlanta in 1996.
Pristine Niche Cantancio, nicknamed Junela, is 11 years old and a distant relative of Bagot's first Olympic boxer. She also trains at the gym and spars with 10-year-old boys.
“I want to follow in my father's footsteps in boxing and make him proud,” she said, referring to Junell Cantancio, the Philippine boxer who failed to qualify for the Olympics.
“Not all of them will become Olympians or make the national team,” Denira said. “For me, it's important to me that even if I don't succeed in life, I have the discipline.”
“The real purpose of sports is to develop people morally and spiritually.”
