Fr. Rudy’s  father  had hoped he would become a lawyer. When Fr. Rudy told him he wanted to become a priest, his father told him, “Yes. But be a good priest!”

Fr. Rudy left San Pablo City on May 30, 1941 and entered the Jesuit Novitiate in Novaliches with Catalino Arevalo, Roque Ferriols, and Jess Diaz.  With his fellow Jesuits, he experienced World War II and everything that it meant—the suffering, the survival, the  eventual victory.

As a scholastic, Rudy, with Fr. Teddy Daigler and Jim Donelan,  helped found and man the Ateneo de Davao in 1948. All together,  except for a brief period, it was in Davao that Fr. Rudy Malasmas spent his many years of service from 1948 until his death a few days ago.

I first met Fr. Rudy as sporting a black eye—yes, a black eye—and a split upper lip in 1956, when I was 15, and in first year college in 1956.  Fr. Rudy was then the Dean of Men, the Prefect of Discipline. One of the college freshmen, Ruben Barriga (so says Tony Buensuceso), had a fight with one of the students from the the Rizal Memorial Colleges.  Early one evening, about 2 dozen students of RMC invaded the Ateneo de Davao College Campus in Jacinto Street to visit Ruben Barriga and to beat him up real bad. But the other Ateneans did not just stand by and watch idly as their fellow Atenean was being beaten up. They jumped right in and joined the fight and zestfully protected their fellow-Atenean. There was a terrible melee with everybody fighting and fists and kicks and stones flying. Fr Rudy, the Dean of Men, rushed out of his office to stop the fight, but no one listened to him. Instead he received two trophies—a black eye, and a split upper lip.

I also remember how he broke up and busted a gambling ring in the Ateneo College. There was a liberated area, the basketball court, near the edge of the property. People gambled there, mostly cara-y-cruz, secure in the fact that they were gambling in a liberated area, far away from the Prefect of Discipline. If Fr. Rudy ever sneaked up, he, with his very visible white soutana, would have been easily spotted by the look-outs of the student gambling lords. And all gambling and all evidence would evaporate long before Fr. Rudy arrived.  Fr. Rudy obtained a high-powered pair of binoculars from a ship captain. From the 3rd floor windows of Fr. Jack Bauer’s chemistry laboratory, Fr. Rudy saw and observed and accurately took the names of everyone involved in the gambling—the actual gamblers, and even the curious onlookers. And he justly punished all those who were guilty. Fr. Rudy was very proud of that crime-busting incident and loved to re-tell the story and remember all the captured culprits.

Right now I have other vivid pictures of Fr. Rudy Malasmas—giving our annual students’ retreat in Our Lady of Good Counsel Retreat House; Directing our annual plays; inspiring our college basketball varsity players in the local college league; joining our students’ picnics to Talomo Beach and Samal Island; and bringing my closest friends to say goodbye to me at the Davao Airport, when I left Davao for the seminary in Quezon City.

In 1961, when I was in the Juniorate in Novaliches, Fr. Rudy Malasmas was assigned to be our Father Minister. Aside from being the Father Minister, he also taught us Spanish.  Our Jesuit population then was made up of the Cebu Berchmans College community and the very many new Philosophy students from China and the United States. In that Berchmans College Novaliches community were Fr. Joe Roche, fresh from Louvain, Ricky Lalana, Asandas Balchand, Bill Abbott, and the slim Ray Holscher.

After being Father Minister to the Jesuit Scholastics in Novaliches, Fr. Rudy served as Headmaster in the Ateneo de Manila Grade School, then as Headmaster of the Ateneo de Davao Grade School. 

Through the years, I would meet Father Malasmas several times every year. Whenever I was in Davao, of course I would see him, and listen to him tell me about his work and his projects.

I knew Fr. Rudy Malasmas for 54 years. I never heard him shout or lose his temper.  He possessed equanimity in everything.

And the way he dressed was, like his person and his personality—sharp, well-balanced, self-confident. He was always neat and presentable. His shirt was always well-pressed and tucked-in. He never wore white, and I never saw him wear black. There was a serene, sincere, subdued, natural elegance about him and his movement, and his manner. 

His spoken English was clear and well-articulated and precise. “It was Horacio De La Costa who taught us English during the war,” he once explained. His homilies and lectures were very clear and easy to understand—unlike those of so many others. He was unburdened by endless, impressive, convoluted quotations from other people. When Rudy Malasmas spoke, it was Rudy Malasmas who spoke. 

After his many, many years in the very complex and impressive Jesuit Academic world. Fr. Rudy realized that all that he had been doing was not good enough because words and ideas with no action were not good enough!

Something more real, more genuine, more authentic was needed. And that something was action—action for justice and for the poor.

What was needed was not just dole-outs either, not just giving away money and food and clothes, but helping the poor man help himself, regain his dignity and self-respect and self confidence, and building new social and economic structures which would liberate the people, who are children of God.

He did not belittle the educational apostolate of the Jesuits. But he publicly and repeatedly proclaimed that it was inadequate. Not just because the 32nd General Congregation of the Jesuits decreed it, but because the poor desperately needed it and the teaching and the life of Jesus Christ commanded it. 

Fr. Rudy  did not rely on  or wait for other younger, stronger, more gifted people to do something about the social and economic situation of the community. He himself tried to do something about the situation.

Fr. Rudy believed that poor people could and would help themselves, if they were given the chance. And he worked to give them that chance.  He tried his best, for example, to help many people achieve self-respect and dignity by setting up a lending program to help people obtain the financial capital necessary to start and maintain their own little family income-generating business.

He saw how the giant multinational drug companies made the people bleed for the medicine they and their family needed. And so, long before the Generics Drug Act became a law, Fr. Rudy tried his best, by means of his network in the Philippines and abroad, to provide reliable, but cheaper medicine for the poor in Davao.

Fr. Rudy Malasmas would spend almost all his time with the poor, or helping the poor. And although he knew, or had taught, almost all the rich and the famous in Davao, Fr. Rudy would often be absent from the many dinners and celebrations of the rich and the powerful of Davao to which the Jesuits were invited. Fr. Rudy would instead be with the poor or with the simple, dedicated people who worked with him for the poor.

Up till the age of 86, Fr. Malasmas worked for the poor. He retained his silent, consistent, effective service for the poor. Here was genuine relevance, and genuine Christianity. Unfazed by anything or anybody, Fr. Rudy Malasmas just kept on doing what he thought was right. For God. And for the poor people of God.

Such generous commitment, balance, clarity, courage and persistence could have come only from a profound interior life, a deep and vibrant union and intimacy with God Our Father, and Jesus, our Brother. Fr. Rudy must have been very close to God.

As a young college student and later on as a fellow Jesuit, I esteemed  Fr. Rodolfo Malasmas with the highest admiration  and respect, grateful to have been given the privilege of being, and working by the side of such a man.

“Whatever you did for the least of my brothers, you did for me.”