There was so much food. The table was covered with serving dishes of Filipino comfort food: pancit, green papaya with chicken, bitter melon with shrimp, crispy fried chicken. There was more on the kitchen counter: trays of rolls, pans of sweet rice, a dessert made from cassava.
The birthday cake was bright purple and decorated with the words, “Happy Big 108 Birthday Margarita.”
Margarita Tabag, the guest of honor, was in high spirits. She thanked everyone for coming to her party, sang a song in Ilocano about it being a happy day indeed and asked for a glass of wine.
She was born July 12, 1911, in the province of Pagudpud in Ilocos Norte in the Philippines. She went to school through the sixth grade, which was a big accomplishment for a girl of that era in that rural community. She married and raised four children, and instilled in them the importance of school, sending them away to the city of Manila for a university education.
Her husband, Francisco Agullana, was one of the many Filipino men who went to work overseas to support his family. He worked first on Guam, sending home his paycheck to his wife and children. He even formed a group with other overseas fathers to establish a music program for children in his hometown’s school.
Francisco came to work in Hawaii in the early 1960s. It was a life of hard work and constant sacrifice, as one by one the children went to college. But in 1963, at the age of 53, he died in his sleep of a massive heart attack. When Margarita finally got to come to Hawaii, it was to attend her husband’s funeral. She never went back.
Those early years in Hawaii were hard. Margarita worked in an industrial laundry and lived in a small house in Kalihi with her grown children. She remarried and three of her children moved to the San Francisco Bay area. In her later years, she lived for a time with her son Jessie in California, but always asked to come back to Hawaii. After Jessie died, Tabag’s three surviving children brought her back to Hawaii.
For the last several years, she’s been living in a care home in Ewa Beach run by Aurora Alejandro. “She takes care of my mom like she’s her mom,” Elena Montero said.
Alejandro cooked all of the Filipino dishes for Margarita’s birthday party.
On Friday afternoon, family members gathered at Alejandro’s house to wish Margarita a happy 108th. Son Eddie Agullana lives on Oahu. Daughters Tessie Freer and Elena Montero came from California for her birthday. Margarita has 11 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and several great-great-grandchildren, but no one was certain of the current count in that generation.
Her family shared stories of her skills as a homemaker, how she could sew clothes from a sketch, how she made the best pinakbet from homegrown vegetables, and knew how to weave strips of leaves into sleeping mats. They described a mom and grandmother who wanted little for herself but everything for her children. Among her descendants are many college graduates. That was always her life’s goal, to make sure the kids were educated.
As for the reasons for her amazing health and longevity, Margarita credits eating lots of vegetables from her garden. Her own mother also lived past 100, so genes play a part.
But her daughter Elena thinks it’s because her mom spent the first half of her life far away from industrialized society.
When it was time to sing “Happy Birthday” and light the candles on the cake — there were just three candles, for practical reasons — Margarita Tabag leaned forward, took a breath and blew out the candles in her first try.
“That’s why long life,” she said, and then laughed.
