As international NGOs and funding agencies rush to provide more and more temporary and “transitional” shelters across Samar, Leyte and the regional hub Tacloban City, the people are living a life that could be considered as “the new normal”.

Only about a week prior to the first anniversary of Yolanda’s epic devastation, President Aquino approved the rehabilitation plan for typhoon-stricken areas. That’s the first thing about everything in “the new normal” — the people have to patiently wait for the terribly slow pace of official rehabilitation efforts and would have to live longer in tents and in “transitional” shelters of various types.

Day One of the Plan International Philippines (Plan) media tour brought us to Barangays 62 and 62-A in Tacloban City.

By a stroke of luck, both barangays did not sustain casualties even if a storm surge of several meters high submerged the two villages, forcing residents to cling to dear life on rooftops and go to higher ground. A number of residents  whose houses were damaged either totally or partially received aid from Plan and its partner institutions.

Thanks to newfound friends, I was able to visit Tacloban and parts of Samar and Leyte in time for the first anniversary of epic supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan).

By newfound friends, I refer to folks at Plan International Philippines, who organized a media tour mostly for journalists and for this blogger. It gave me a chance to see the pace of recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts a year after the world’s strongest storm devastated our country. By design, the media tour sought to showcase Plan’s work among the good people of Eastern Visayas: The schedules and itineraries were tight, but we all took as much as we could to get a pulse of our kababayans, especially the kids and young people.

So what did I see?