DAVAO CITY — For 11 years, Anna Marie Inocencio Baculna has stood before classrooms not only as a teacher, but as a guide, a mentor and a source of encouragement for young people discovering who they are and what they want to become. Today, she continues to do so while facing one of the most difficult battles of her life.
A teacher of Tugbok National High School, Baculna is living with Stage 4 lung cancer that has metastasized to her bones and brain. Yet despite the pain and physical challenges brought by her illness, she continues to make every effort to fulfill her role as an educator and remain present for her students. Her story was recognized during the World Teachers’ Day celebration in Davao City on October 6, where she was named a Featured Teacher Awardee in recognition of her dedication, sacrifice and perseverance in the face of extraordinary personal challenges.
For Baculna, however, the recognition was more than an award. It was a powerful reminder that her efforts had been seen, her struggles had been heard, and her sacrifices as a teacher had been valued. Reflecting on the words of Vice President Sara Duterte, Baculna said she was deeply moved when she realized that the message had become real in her own experience. “When VP Inday Sara said these words: ‘You are seen, you are heard and you are valued,’ there is sting in my heart. Am I?” Baculna wrote in a personal post. She said the answer was ultimately found in the people who surrounded her and showed their support.
As a teacher battling advanced cancer, Baculna said life can sometimes feel cruel, but she has also discovered that kindness can emerge even in the darkest moments. She expressed gratitude to God for the people who continued to see her, listen to her story and recognize the efforts she has made for others. Their presence, she said, has given her reasons to keep smiling even while enduring pain, and has made her feel that she does not have to face her battle alone.
Baculna’s determination is perhaps most evident in what she says she continues to endure simply to reach her classroom. She described the difficulty of climbing stairs to get to her class, episodes of nosebleeding and other physical symptoms that could have easily forced her to stay home, but she kept going. The sight of her students, she said, has become a source of strength powerful enough to momentarily take her mind away from the pain. She spoke of bone pain that can feel excruciating, bruising and hematomas, extreme sleepiness and the physical toll of her illness, yet when she sees her students, the burden can momentarily become lighter. Her students, in many ways, have become part of her reason to fight.
Baculna is also a mother of six, making her battle not only a personal struggle but one deeply connected to the family she hopes to continue supporting. Amid her illness, she has remained focused on what she hopes to leave behind. She wants her students to remember her not simply as a teacher who taught lessons inside a classroom, but as someone who encouraged them to discover their genuine purpose in life. For Baculna, teaching is ultimately about helping young people understand themselves, recognize their dreams and find the courage to pursue them. That is the legacy she hopes to leave, and perhaps it is also why, despite everything her body is going through, she continues to return to the classroom.
Baculna recalled another moment that helped change her outlook. She was asked by her school to participate in the 12th Regional Association of Education Leaders (RAEL) Teachers Edition, a three-day event. At first, she questioned whether she could manage the trip and the physical demands of attending. She had recently undergone a checkup and was struggling with fear and uncertainty about how much longer she would be able to continue. She described feeling down and hopeless, even asking herself whether she could really survive the cancer. But the event brought an unexpected turning point when a speaker’s message helped transform her despair into determination and her doubts into perseverance. The words that stayed with her were simple but powerful: “Balik sa bakik, kapit sa bakik.” Another phrase that resonated deeply with her was, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Baculna later approached the speaker to tell him how deeply his words had affected her, but overwhelmed by emotion, she could not hold back her tears. For someone confronting a disease that has already reached an advanced stage, the message became more than motivation; it became a reminder that the battle was not yet over.
Faith has also become a central part of Baculna’s journey. She believes that God continues to work through the people who surround her and extend kindness, prayers and support. She recently received a rosary from Cebu, which she described as deeply meaningful because it came after she had shared her desire to visit Simala. For Baculna, the gesture was another reminder that prayers can take unexpected forms, and she said the experience helped her understand more deeply that things can happen for a reason—even circumstances that initially seem impossible to understand.
Baculna’s family and friends have also organized donation drives to help support her continuing treatment. The effort reflects a broader desire to help her spend more time with the people she loves—her six children, her family, her students and the community she has served for more than a decade. DepEd Davao City has likewise expressed recognition and support for her journey, something Baculna said has given her additional strength and courage. Knowing that she is not alone has mattered profoundly, and for a teacher whose own body is fighting a painful battle, the compassion of others has become another form of strength.
Baculna does not romanticize what she is going through. She knows the battle is becoming more difficult, but she refuses to let the diagnosis define the entirety of her story. “The fight is not over,” she said, acknowledging that the challenges are becoming tougher with every passing day. Still, she holds on to her faith that God can turn her life into something she has prayed for—and perhaps something greater. She believes one reason she became a teacher was to allow her students to witness something beyond academic lessons: the reality of faith, courage and perseverance. Her classroom has become more than a place where she teaches; it has become a place where she demonstrates, through her own life, what it means to continue despite adversity.
The recognition given to Teacher Anna Marie Baculna is ultimately a story about more than cancer. It is a story about a teacher who continues to show up, a mother who continues to hope, a woman who continues to find reasons to smile, and an educator who wants her students to discover their own purpose even as she confronts profound uncertainty about her own future.
Her journey reminds us that teachers, too, carry invisible battles behind the classroom door. Some climb the stairs while carrying pain, some teach while struggling with personal grief, and some smile in front of their students while privately fighting battles that few people see. Baculna’s story brings those hidden sacrifices into view, reminding her community that behind every lesson, every smile and every classroom appearance may be a personal struggle that requires extraordinary courage.
She has been seen, she has been heard, and through the recognition of her colleagues, students, family, friends and community, she has been reminded that she is valued. For now, Teacher Anna continues to fight—not only for more time with her family, but for more moments with the students who have become one of her greatest sources of strength. And as long as she can stand before them, she intends to keep teaching. Her lesson may ultimately be the most powerful one of all: that even in the hardest season of life, hope can still be chosen, purpose can still be lived, and love can still give a person the strength to keep going.