EN BANC
G.R. No. L-7188
August 9, 1954
In re: Will and Testament of the deceased REVEREND SANCHO
ABADIA.
SEVERINA A. VDA. DE ENRIQUEZ, ET AL., petitioners-appellees,
vs.
MIGUEL ABADIA, ET AL., oppositors-appellants.
Manuel A. Zosa, Luis B. Ladonga, Mariano A. Zosa and B. G.
Advincula for appellants.
C. de la Victoria for appellees.
MONTEMAYOR, J.:
On September 6, 1923, Father Sancho Abadia, parish priest of
Talisay, Cebu, executed a document purporting to be his Last Will and Testament
now marked Exhibit "A". Resident of the City of Cebu, he died on
January 14, 1943, in the municipality of Aloguinsan, Cebu, where he was an
evacuee. He left properties estimated at P8,000 in value. On October 2, 1946,
one Andres Enriquez, one of the legatees in Exhibit "A", filed a
petition for its probate in the Court of First Instance of Cebu. Some cousins
and nephews who would inherit the estate of the deceased if he left no will,
filed opposition.
During the hearing one of the attesting witnesses, the other
two being dead, testified without contradiction that in his presence and in the
presence of his co-witnesses, Father Sancho wrote out in longhand Exhibit
"A" in Spanish which the testator spoke and understood; that he
(testator) signed on he left hand margin of the front page of each of the three
folios or sheets of which the document is composed, and numbered the same with
Arabic numerals, and finally signed his name at the end of his writing at the
last page, all this, in the presence of the three attesting witnesses after
telling that it was his last will and that the said three witnesses signed
their names on the last page after the attestation clause in his presence and
in the presence of each other. The oppositors did not submit any evidence.
The learned trial court found and declared Exhibit
"A" to be a holographic will; that it was in the handwriting of the
testator and that although at the time it was executed and at the time of the
testator's death, holographic wills were not permitted by law still, because at
the time of the hearing and when the case was to be decided the new Civil Code
was already in force, which Code permitted the execution of holographic wills,
under a liberal view, and to carry out the intention of the testator which according
to the trial court is the controlling factor and may override any defect in
form, said trial court by order dated January 24, 1952, admitted to probate
Exhibit "A", as the Last Will and Testament of Father Sancho Abadia.
The oppositors are appealing from that decision; and because only questions of
law are involved in the appeal, the case was certified to us by the Court of
Appeals.
The new Civil Code (Republic Act No. 386) under article 810
thereof provides that a person may execute a holographic will which must be
entirely written, dated and signed by the testator himself and need not be
witnessed. It is a fact, however, that at the time that Exhibit "A"
was executed in 1923 and at the time that Father Abadia died in 1943,
holographic wills were not permitted, and the law at the time imposed certain
requirements for the execution of wills, such as numbering correlatively each
page (not folio or sheet) in letters and signing on the left hand margin by the
testator and by the three attesting witnesses, requirements which were not
complied with in Exhibit "A" because the back pages of the first two
folios of the will were not signed by any one, not even by the testator and
were not numbered, and as to the three front pages, they were signed only by
the testator.
Interpreting and applying this requirement this Court in the
case of In re Estate of Saguinsin, 41 Phil., 875, 879, referring to the failure
of the testator and his witnesses to sign on the left hand margin of every
page, said:
. . . . This defect is radical and totally vitiates the
testament. It is not enough that the signatures guaranteeing authenticity
should appear upon two folios or leaves; three pages having been written on,
the authenticity of all three of them should be guaranteed by the signature of
the alleged testatrix and her witnesses.
And in the case of Aspe vs. Prieto, 46 Phil., 700, referring
to the same requirement, this Court declared:
From an examination of the document in question, it appears
that the left margins of the six pages of the document are signed only by
Ventura Prieto. The noncompliance with section 2 of Act No. 2645 by the
attesting witnesses who omitted to sign with the testator at the left margin of
each of the five pages of the document alleged to be the will of Ventura
Prieto, is a fatal defect that constitutes an obstacle to its probate.
What is the law to apply to the probate of Exh.
"A"? May we apply the provisions of the new Civil Code which not
allows holographic wills, like Exhibit "A" which provisions were
invoked by the appellee-petitioner and applied by the lower court? But article
795 of this same new Civil Code expressly provides: "The validity of a
will as to its form depends upon the observance of the law in force at the time
it is made." The above provision is but an expression or statement of the
weight of authority to the affect that the validity of a will is to be judged
not by the law enforce at the time of the testator's death or at the time the
supposed will is presented in court for probate or when the petition is decided
by the court but at the time the instrument was executed. One reason in support
of the rule is that although the will operates upon and after the death of the
testator, the wishes of the testator about the disposition of his estate among
his heirs and among the legatees is given solemn expression at the time the
will is executed, and in reality, the legacy or bequest then becomes a
completed act. This ruling has been laid down by this court in the case of In
re Will of Riosa, 39 Phil., 23. It is a wholesome doctrine and should be
followed.
Of course, there is the view that the intention of the
testator should be the ruling and controlling factor and that all adequate
remedies and interpretations should be resorted to in order to carry out said
intention, and that when statutes passed after the execution of the will and
after the death of the testator lessen the formalities required by law for the
execution of wills, said subsequent statutes should be applied so as to validate
wills defectively executed according to the law in force at the time of
execution. However, we should not forget that from the day of the death of the
testator, if he leaves a will, the title of the legatees and devisees under it
becomes a vested right, protected under the due process clause of the
constitution against a subsequent change in the statute adding new legal
requirements of execution of wills which would invalidate such a will. By
parity of reasoning, when one executes a will which is invalid for failure to
observe and follow the legal requirements at the time of its execution then
upon his death he should be regarded and declared as having died intestate, and
his heirs will then inherit by intestate succession, and no subsequent law with
more liberal requirements or which dispenses with such requirements as to
execution should be allowed to validate a defective will and thereby divest the
heirs of their vested rights in the estate by intestate succession. The general
rule is that the Legislature can not validate void wills (57 Am. Jur., Wills,
Sec. 231, pp. 192-193).
In view of the foregoing, the order appealed from is
reversed, and Exhibit "A" is denied probate. With costs.
Paras, C.J., Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Reyes, A., Jugo,
Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion and Reyes J.B.L., JJ., concur.