If grumpiness has something to do with old age, 74-year-old Jesuit priest Fr. Raimundo Peruga’s mood swings were expected. With so much to do and attend TO his missionary obligations, his health was also affected by troublesome rheumatism.
In a letter to Fr. Salvador Giralt, SJ, dated March 21, 1914, Fr, Peruga, known for his candor, wrote of an incident that month while in search of a craft to deliver him to Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur. For two weeks he scoured the streets of Davao inquiring if there was an available launch bound for the south. He inquired nearby for every possible source but ‘all of them entertained me day after day with reasons, excuses, and lies.’
It was only in the afternoon of March 5 that a Chinese told him of a scheduled trip: ‘Tomorrow my launch leaves for the south, and you can embark on it.’ ‘What time?’ the padre asked. The Chinese said: ‘I can’t tell the time right now: come tomorrow at seven and I’ll tell you.’ They agreed to meet the following day.
‘According to the appointment,’ Fr. Peruga wrote, ‘I went to the house of the Chinese the next day, and he told me that his boat, anchored in Santa Ana about three kilometers from [San Pedro Church], would leave for the south between nine and ten that morning. I immediately paid the ticket, and at eight o’clock I took a carriage, which cost me one peso, which brought me to the aforementioned port of Santa Ana.’
To remind the Chinese where he was going, he repeated his destinations as Astorga and Santa Cruz. But, to his surprise, the launch owner told him of a change in terminus, saying: ‘Well, you can return to your convent. The plan has been changed. We no longer go south, but north.’ The padre insisted he had already purchased a ticket, but the Chinese insisted: ‘No matter. You can’t embark for the south, because we’re going north.’
Apparently disgusted by the turn of events, which he blamed on ‘the informality and habit of lying of certain people,’ Fr. Peruga had to pray in order not to get exasperated; he was left with no choice but to endure. Still insistent, he reminded the Chinese trader of what they had originally agreed upon. The trader retorted: ‘Father, be patient: my work and commitments are so many that I hardly know what I tell myself, nor what I do to myself.’
But in a flash, the Chinaman’s tenor abruptly changed, who told the priest: ‘Go to the convent, and rest: I promise you that today you can embark on my launch with the course you want: I will send for you with my carriage at a convenient time.’
Finally, after a series of displeasures, the carriage promised by the Chinese arrived at the convent at around 3:00 PM. Over an hour later, the boat left port but not towards Santa Cruz but for Coronon, a halfway point. The priest was forced to pass the night there because the evening had fallen. He did not say where he slept but surely with a family he knew from previous ministries.The following morning, Fr. Peruga, with his companions in attendance, said Mass and started instructing people in nearby areas. He baptized two infants and shortly after noon left Astorga on a horse loaned by someone who knew him.
He proceeded to the house of Don Luis Serroche, a Spanish plantation owner, who hosted the priest’s previous visits in the area.It was only three days later that a small boat owned by Serroche, described as a generous man, was deployed to bring Fr. Peruga to Santa Cruz which, at the time, was the center of Catholicism in the south.
In the priest’s own words, the place was the main part of the Davao Mission ‘due to its spacious extension, and also due to the variety of tribes, languages, and nations it could be called the Patriarchate of Oceania.’
