The doctrinal differences between the Catholic faith and Protestantism during American rule sparked numerous controversies that, as expected, dragged the government into the picture, largely to resolve certain denominational issues. Two of these incidents were cited by Jesuit priest Fr. Raimundo Peruga in a letter dated August 10, 1913, datelined Davao and addressed to Fr. Saturnino Urios, S.J., the Mission Superior in Manila.
The first case is the protest against the Protestant practice of street-preaching in the marketplace that enraged Fr. Miguel Alaix, a Jesuit priest. The preacher was a Filipino pastor who made it a habit to address in the area on Sundays, which the priest regarded as “illegal abuse.” As a resort, Fr. Juan Rebull, another Jesuit, reported the incident to the district governor who acted on it in favor of the Catholic missionary.
But the American pastor in Davao City, thinking the prohibition was restricted only to Filipino Protestant ministers, took over the Sunday chores, but the authorities ordered him to withdraw from the scene. But the pastor argued his case, saying he was already doing street-preaching for a decade and nobody raised a howl against it and against him.
But the authorities explicitly told him that the market is a government property and only the administration has the right to do what it sees fit when it comes to the disposal of its assets. With that, the Sunday religious ritual at the marketplace stopped for good.
Fr. Peruga rationalized that the street and plaza do not belong to the government but to the public, and that “even if preaching on government property is illegal, it will not be in the streets and squares.” Under the law at the time, religious worship was to be done in private.
But Fr. Rebull argued that even if a license was granted to street preachers, he would still raise a protest against it with the higher authority.
Today, street preaching, almost an exclusive domain of non-Catholic denominations, is publicly allowed. Whether in bus terminals, road junctions, public markets, sidewalks, mobile busses, public squares, or commercial intersections, the spectacle of pastors intensely preaching the Gospel has become a common sight.
In another incident, which took place in Davao a day before Fr. Peruga wrote the letter to Fr. Urios, the clash of two denominations was about the authority of religious sacraments.
The son of Prudencio Garcia, the former governor of Surigao and once the commander of the Spanish constabulary in Mati City, died at the Davao Mission Hospital along Magallanes Street, Davao City. Before he died, he received the sacraments of Extreme Unction (Anointing of the Sick) and Viaticum (the Eucharist as given to a person near death) four times, obviously administered by Fr. Rebull, a Spanish Catholic priest from the nearby San Pedro Church.
Despite receiving the last rites under a Catholic cleric, a group of people Fr. Peruga called as ‘the heretics…wanted to seize and make the corpse their own.’ This unusual incident impelled Fr. Rebull to file a complaint before the municipal judge who promptly called a trial that lasted over two hours, with the contending parties arguing their respective cases.
The Catholic side was represented by two priests and two Brothers, while the Protestant side was represented by an American pastor and a number of his satellites, including the 16-year-old son of the deceased. “The session had several overtones, alternatives and accidents, already favorable or contrary to both parties,” Fr. Peruga wrote.
In the end, the judge (whose religious denomination was not mentioned) eventually decided in favor of the Catholics, ruling that the burial should be done under Catholic rites.
