MANILA, Philippines - Children giggling while playing a local version of "dodge ball" with their slippers, children laughing as they jump over wrecked cars and a housewife becoming more hopeful after her house was installed with electricity can be seen in Tacloban months after Super Typhoon Haiyan, locally called Yolanda, plowed through the city and a large part of Eastern Visayas.
These are the scenes you'll see in Discovery Channel's anniversary documentary titled "Haiyan: After the Megastorm" hosted by Filipino-British Trey Farley, which will premiere across Southeast Asia 8 p.m. November 8, the same date when the powerful typhoon slammed into the city.
The 60-minute special does not provide big scientific revelations of how Haiyan drastically intensified into a mega storm or how the Philippine government prepared for it, but rather it tells how the people of Tacloban and other parts of Eastern Visayas are coping from the massive devastation caused by the strongest typhoon ever recorded in 2013.
Emile Guertin, Discovery Channel's executive producer based in Singapore, said the special is a follow up to the documentary shot by Discovery Channel six weeks after the typhoon hit the city.
Guertin said the most obvious feel he noticed when he returned to Tacloban was the "general sense of upbeat optimism" among the residents.
"At one you are surrounded by so much misfortune, tragedy and upheaval. At the same time there's this kind of paradox going on... people don't want to be seen depressed," he said.
The "Haiyan: After the Megastorm" tells just that, people who lost their parents and almost all of their relatives who did not forget to smile despite the unimaginable tragedy that they experience after the typhoon's devastation.
One scene in the documentary was an interview by Farley with three children who all lost their parents to the typhoon. One child recalls how she survived only to find out that her family had been killed by the storm. The girl told the story without a trace of sadness on her face, and she was even smiling a little while talking to Farley.
Farley's crew was also able to witness the reconnection of electricity to a house owned by a woman, who would tell him during their conversation, "Parang magkakaroon na kami ng pag-asa, ng pagbabago."
The special ends with a group of orphaned children being taken care of in a healing camp organized by a local group called Ginhawa. The camp teaches children how to acknowledge the trauma caused by Haiyan's devastation and how they should go through the unfortunate experience.
Sally Jo Bellosillo, who is part of the Caelestis Productions Inc. that Discovery Channel partnered with in making the special, said the short documentary aims to inspire people and celebrate the small heroic acts by the people of Tacloban during and after the typhoon.
It also highlights the ingenuity and sense of humor of the Filipinos, which are actually helping the residents of Tacloban recover from the super typhoon's destruction.