Sual : "Spade"

Sual today can bask well under the sun as the only municipality where General Emilio Aguinaldo embarked in going to Hongkong to fulfill a provision of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato to go into self-exile.

Sual is provided with a natural port wherein boats can enter into and remain safe during typhoons. For Sual, when developed will serve as the window of the west and where products could be sold and transported to all parts of the world as when she was a port of entry during the Spanish time.

Sual was founded on May 20, 1805 when Don Rafael Maria Aguilar was Governor-General of the Philippines. Before that year however, Labrador was part and parcel of Sual. It was during the year 1834 when Domingo Villanueva was the Gobernadorcillo that the first parochial church was erected in the southeastern part of the Poblacion now the Catholic cemetery.

Sual got its name in the following story. Two Spaniards were visiting the town and they happened to see a native who was digging a hole with a spade. They asked him in Spanish, " Como se ilama este pueblo," meaning what is the name of this town. They looked at the spade and thinking that they were asking for the spade, he answered, "sual." The Spaniards taking the word to be the name of the place, called it Sual. #