Ponente: Paras, C.J.
FACTS:
·
Vicente Cagro died in Samar
on February 14, 1949. Cagro left a will, which was allowed to be probated by
the CFI of Samar despite the claim of the oppositors that the will was fatally
defective.
·
The oppositors alleged that
the attestation clause of the will was not signed by the attesting witnesses.
It was proven in court that the signatures of the three witnesses to the will
do not in fact appear at the bottom of the attestation clause, although the
page containing the same was signed by the witnesses on the left-hand margin.
·
The estate was contending
that despite the absence of the witnesses' signatures at the bottom of the
attestation clause, their signatures on the left-hand margin conform
substantially to the law and may be deemed as their signatures to the
attestation clause.
RULING:
Whether there
is substantial compliance when the witnesses to a will signed on the left hand
margin but not at the bottom of the attestation clause of the same page. – NO.
·
The attestation clause is 'a memorandum of the
facts attending the execution of the will' required by law to be made by the
attesting witnesses, and it must necessarily bear their signatures. An unsigned
attestation clause cannot be considered as an act of the witnesses, since the
omission of their signatures at the bottom thereof negatives their participation.
·
If an attestation clause not signed by the
three witnesses at the bottom thereof, be admitted as sufficient, it would be
easy to add such clause to a will on a subsequent occasion and in the absence
of the testator and any or all of the witnesses.
DISSENTING
OPINION
Bautista,
Angelo, J.
·
The will in question has substantially
complied with the formalities of the law and, therefore, should be admitted to
probate.
·
The oppositors' objection is too technical to
be entertained. In the case of Abangan vs. Abangan, (40 Phil., 476), the Court
said that when the testamentary dispositions "are wholly written on only
one sheet signed at the bottom by the testator and three witnesses (as the
instant case), their signatures on the left margin of said sheet would be
completely purposeless."
·
In such a case, the Court said, the
requirement of the signatures on the left hand margin was not necessary because
the purpose of the law — which is to avoid the substitution of any of the
sheets of the will, thereby changing the testator's dispositions — has already
been accomplished. We may say the same thing in connection with the will under
consideration because while the three instrumental witnesses did not sign
immediately by the majority that it may have been only added on a subsequent
occasion and not at the uncontradicted testimony of said witnesses to the
effect that such attestation clause was already written in the will when the
same was signed.
·
The liberal trend of the New Civil Code in the
matter of interpretation of wills is that in case of doubt, what needs to be
done is to give such interpretation that would have the effect of preventing
intestacy.
DISSENTING
OPINION
Tuason, J.
·
It is legally sufficient that the witnesses'
signatures appear on the left margin. The law on wills does not provide that
the attesting witness should sign the clause at the bottom. In the absence of
such provision, there is no reason why signatures on the margin are not good. A
letter is not any the less the writer's simply because it was signed, not at
the conventional place but on the side or on top.