By FREDDIE G. LAZARO

CABUGAO, Ilocos Sur – The role of Ilocos Sur as main source of laborers for the sugar cane plantation in Hawaii 100 years ago was finally recognized with the unveiling of the “sakada” monument at Port Salomague here.

Doing the unveiling honors was visiting Hawaiian Gov. Linda Lingle and Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis Chavit Singson, last Sunday in the same port where the last of 6,000 migratory workers for Hawaii boarded a U.S. ship bound for that Pacific Island in 1946.

The unveiling rite was part of the centennial celebration of the immigration of Filipino workers to Hawaii—with the first wave of workers arriving in that island on Dec. 20, 1906 aboard SS “Doric”.

There were at least 15 Ilocanos, all from Candon, Ilocos Sur, who were included in the first wave of workers although they were recruited in Manila.

Singson said Salomague Port played a special role in that migration because it was here where the last batch of workers bound for Hawaii, composed of 6,000 Ilocanos, had boarded SS Maunawili in 1946.

In the same year, SS Marine Falcon docked at Port Salomague and ferried 710 women and 1,425 children, all relatives of “sakadas”, to Hawaii.

In a speech after the unveiling rite, Lingle said the “sakada” statue symbolized the first brave Filipino-Ilocanos who migrated to Hawaii to seek better way of life by working hard as laborers in Hawaii sugar cane plantations.

Lingle extolled the first Filipino overseas workers, many of them Ilocanos, for their great contribution to the economy of Hawaii.