A 14-year-old daughter, Maria Jean, beamed with optimism. "I'll be the best businesswoman in Asia and bring them out of here someday," she said when asked about her plans.
With help from relatives and friends, Bacsal was able to send Maria Jean to high school. They scrimp on grocery items recently donated by a city official and were able to sell extra food stuff to neighbors in an improvised store.
They sometimes miss out on meals.
While the exact figures for the dead and missing are still being collected, the physical recovery remains a challenge. The typhoon demolished about a million houses and displaced more than 4 million people in one of the country's poorest regions, where a Marxist insurgency has endured for decades.
Overall damage was estimated at 571.1 billion pesos ($12.9 billion), including about 16 million knocked-down coconut trees, a major source of livelihood.
