MANILA, Philippines?Evelyn Caja remembers the day in the early 1990s when she was on the point of joining the exodus of teachers from the country in search of greener pastures abroad.

All that was needed was her signature on the contract hiring her services as a special education teacher (Sped) in the United States.

Despite the allure of the dollar, however, Caja opted to stay.

She realized that her true calling was in teaching visually impaired students at the Ramon Magsaysay High School on España Boulevard in Manila.

Her labor of love in helping her blind students to ?see? and appreciate the intricacies of human biology, the complexity of math equations, and the nuances of music has brought Caja, 61, so many blessings.

Caja has won all the awards and honors that could be possibly won by a teacher in the country so that she was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame of the teaching profession.

The Department of Education has dubbed her the ?Anne Sullivan? of the numerous students she has nurtured, including Roselle R. Ambubuyog, the first visually impaired student to graduate summa cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University. Sullivan was the tutor of the famous deaf-and-blind American author Helen Keller.

?First of all, I really love what I do. I?ve learned that if you really want to do something, there?s a way. If not, there are many excuses. I love what I have been doing for 35 years as a Sped teacher,? Caja said in an interview.

Like mission accomplished

The Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net) found Caja recording on a cassette tape the lessons for her students long after school hours were over.

?You see the reaction in their faces when they learn something and that?s more than enough for me. When you explain something and they get it, they radiate this joy and you?ll see it in them. You?ll also feel it. It?s like ?mission accomplished?,? she said.

In 2001 she won the national Search for Outstanding Teacher (SOT). Earlier this month, Caja was conferred the 2009 Award for Continuing Excellence and Service (ACES). The latter award is given to past Metrobank Foundation awardees who continue to stand out in their respective fields after having been honored by the foundation.

Among the awards she has received after winning the SOT are: the 2002 Lingkod Bayan Award, Civil Service Commission, 2002 Thomasite Centennial International Visitor Award, Metrobank Foundation and the US Government; Finalist, 2003 Gawad Geny Lopez Bayaning Pilipino Award, ABS-CBN and Ugat Foundation; and the 2004 Outstanding Manilan Award.

?Nothing is impossible?

Caja is the principal of the Center for Developmental Intervention Foundation at the Philippine Children Medical Center and the national treasurer of the Network of Outstanding Teachers and Educators (Noted), an organization of past and current SOT awardees.

?I would not have lasted this long if I didn?t love what I do. Without love, easy things become difficult. But with love difficult things become easy. Nothing is impossible when you love your work,? she said.

Growing up as a pastor?s daughter, Caja was keen to serve very early in life. She became interested in teaching because she sometimes had to sit in as a Sunday school teacher.

?I am a pastor?s daughter so whenever the Sunday school teacher was absent, I had to do her work. So even when I was still in grade school, I was already exposed to teaching children,? she said.

?When I finished high school?we were not rich, my father was only a pastor?he had me take education at the Philippine Normal College because the tuition per semester then was only P40,? she said.

First blind student

On her third year at the PNC, while practice-teaching with fourth-grade pupils, she encountered her first visually impaired student. It left her with an indelible impression.

?There was a blind girl who was in a mainstream class but she was doing very, very well. I forget her name but I was so amazed by her,? Caja said.

She wondered at how the girl could even manage to study.

?We did not have Sped teachers then. That was what got me into special education,? she said.

After graduating from college, Caja went to teach in Zamboanga del Sur where her father was then assigned as a pastor. While there she heard about a scholarship being offered at the PNC for training in special education.

Gov?t scholar

?Luckily, I passed. I was a government scholar from 1970 to 1974. I finished my master?s degree in a year. Since 1974, I have been a Sped teacher up to now,? she said.

Because of the war in Mindanao in the early 1970s, Caja decided to move back to Manila. She taught at the Philippine National School for the Blind in Pasay City for 10 years before transferring to Ramon Magsaysay.