EN BANC
G.R. No. L-28946
January 16, 1929
In re estate of Piraso, deceased.
SIXTO ACOP, petitioner-appellant,
vs.
SALMING PIRASO, ET AL., opponents-appellees.
Gibbs and McDonough and Roman Ozaeta for appellant.
Adolfo A. Scheerer for appellees.
ROMUALDEZ, J.:
This appeal was taken from the judgment of the Court of
First Instance of Benguet, denying the probate of the instrument Exhibit A, as
the last will and testament of the deceased Piraso.
The proponent-appellant assigns the following as alleged
errors of the lower court:
1. In holding that in order to be valid the will in question
should have been drawn up in the Ilocano dialect.
2. In not holding that the testator Piraso did not know the
Ilocano dialect well enough to understand a will drawn up in said dialect.
3. In refusing to admit the will in question to probate.
The fundamental errors assigned refer chiefly to the part of
the judgment which reads as follows:
The evidence shows that Piraso knew how to speak the Ilocano
dialect, although imperfectly, and could make himself understood in that
dialect, and the court is of the opinion that his will should have been written
in that dialect.
Such statements were not unnecessary for the decision of the
case, once it has been proved without contradiction, that the said deceased
Piraso did not know English, in which language the instrument Exhibit A,
alleged to be his will, is drawn. Section 628 of the Code of Civil Procedure,
strictly provides that:
"No will, except as provides in the preceding
section" (as to wills executed by a Spaniard or a resident of the
Philippine Islands, before the present Code of Civil Procedure went into
effect), "shall be valid to pass any estate, real or personal, nor charge
or affect the same, unless it be written in the language or dialect known by
the testator," etc. (Emphasis supplied.) Nor can the presumption in favor
of the will established by this court in Abangan vs. Abangan (40 Phil., 476),
to the effect that the testator is presumed to know the dialect of the locality
where he resides, unless there is proof to the contrary, even he invoked in
support of the probate of said document Exhibit A, as a will, because, in the
instant case, not only is it not proven that English is the language of the
City of Baguio where the deceased Piraso lived and where Exhibit A was drawn,
but that the record contains positive proof that said Piraso knew no other
language than the Igorrote dialect, with a smattering of Ilocano; that is, he
did not know the English language in which Exhibit A is written. So that even
if such a presumption could have been raised in this case it would have been
wholly contradicted and destroyed.
We consider the other question raised in this appeal needless
and immaterial to the adjudication of this case, it having been, as it was,
proven, that the instrument in question could not be probated as the last will
and testament of the deceased Piraso, having been written in the English
language with which the latter was unacquainted.
Such a result based upon solidly established facts would be
the same whether or not it be technically held that said will, in order to be
valid, must be written in the Ilocano dialect; whether or not the Igorrote or
Inibaloi dialect is a cultivated language and used as a means of communication
in writing, and whether or not the testator Piraso knew the Ilocano dialect
well enough to understand a will written in said dialect. The fact is, we
repeat, that it is quite certain that the instrument Exhibit A was written in
English which the supposed testator Piraso did not know, and this is sufficient
to invalidate said will according to the clear and positive provisions of the
law, and inevitably prevents its probate.
The judgment appealed from is affirmed, with the costs of
this instance against the appellant. So ordered.
Avanceña, C. J., Malcolm, Villamor, Ostrand and Villa-Real,
JJ., concur.