TACLOBAN - In humanitarian emergencies, everyone needs to have a coping mechanism. When you are plunged into situations of such despair, you need something to keep you going – physically and emotionally.

There's the humanitarian logistics officer who Skypes with his young kids each night before they go to school in a country 40 hours away. There's the advocacy officer who each morning after sleeping on a table and having a wetwipe bath, carefully applies eyeliner. There's the videographer who, while filming displaced persons queuing at the airport to flee the destruction, stands there practicing what looks like his ping pong backhand.

As people who deploy to the world's most tragic humanitarian emergencies, we all need something to help us cope with the chaos.  But what about the local people? What do they do to cope?

A Filipino staff member in Tacloban told me that it was love and faith that would help the people of this devastated city survive. It was love for their families, their friends, their city and their country that would help them pull themselves out of this disaster. "We Filipinos are strong people," he told me. "We were crying for maybe a few days but now we know we need to pick ourselves up and recover from this calamity."

The people here have faith too. Not just religious faith, but faith in the belief that they can – and will – recover.

In a world that is so divided, that is so often raging with anger and hostility, this love and faith of the people of Tacloban is truly admirable. Their constantly positive attitude, and gratefulness for the support they are receiving from the international community, is extremely motivating, encouraging and inspiring.

Five years ago the Mayor of Tacloban launched a marketing campaign called I [heart] Tacloban. Even now, when a vast majority of this coastal city has been washed away, the essence of this campaign remains. There are tents that now provide shelter to people who lost their homes that say I [heart] Tacloban. There are government vehicles now distributing emergency relief items that say I [heart] Tacloban. And then there are the t-shirts, accompanied by the smile of the person wearing it, that shows that they really do [heart] Tacloban. This is how they cope with the chaos.

By Mariko Hall, ETC Philippines