A year ago in Tacloban City, Jessica Soho met Marvin Isanan at the airport where he works as a security guard. While grieving the loss of his three daughters to the storm surge, Marvin tells Jessica how he was able to save two other guards when huge waves crashed into the airport. Today, Marvin is rebuilding his life with his wife and his only son, Prince. His dream, he says, is to finally make it out of the makeshift house where his family now stays, and to have a permanent home to call their own.
Jiggy Manicad was en route to Palo, Leyte when he met Jemmar Caindoy, a father carrying the lifeless body of his daughter, Ellaine Shane. Today, Jemmar lives in a small home which he built using salvaged materials and scrap wood. Jiggy discovers that Jemmar and his wife never found the grave where their daughter was buried. They left the child’s body at a hospital where remains of victims were being taken, but they never knew where authorities buried the bodies. Jiggy attempts to help Jemmar and his wife locate the site where their precious daughter now rests.Also in Palo, Leyte, Micaela Papa and her news team witnessed the horror of the storm surge as it came crashing through buildings. A year on, the hotel where Mica and her team stayed is still in ruins. Mica then heads to Samar to see how survivors there are recovering from the tragedy. In Guiuan, Eastern Samar, where Yolanda first made landfall, Mica meets tent city residents who chose to build houses back in danger zones. Fishing, they say, is the only thing keeping them alive after relief goods stopped arriving earlier this year. Even fishing, they say, is no longer enough as good catch is becoming increasingly hard to come by. While in Marabut, Western Samar, children are taught in tent classrooms, where both rain and heat take a toll on their health. In other parts of Leyte and Samar, bunkhouses and transitional homes now stand where there used to be rubble, and there are structures that have been rebuilt. But much, much more remains to be done to ensure that a similar tragedy is averted, not if, but when the next super storm hits.
This November, as we revisit the devastation left by Yolanda and honor the stories of heroism in the midst of tragedy, we also examine the lessons from this disaster in the hope that more lives will be saved in future typhoon scenarios.
Hosted by GMA News and Public Affairs pillar Jessica Soho, and with reports from Jiggy Manicad and Micaela Papa, PAGBANGON endeavours to be the most comprehensive documentary to tackle the recovery and rehabilitation efforts for the survivors of Yolanda.
PAGBANGON airs this Saturday, November 8, 10:30PM on GMA-7.
