G.R. No.
83484 February 12, 1990 Salustia and her sister, Celedonia (daughter of Engracio Solivio and his second wife Josefa
CELEDONIA SOLIVIO, petitioner,
vs.
THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS and CONCORDIA JAVELLANA
VILLANUEVA, respondents.
Rex Suiza Castillon for petitioner.
Salas & Villareal for private respondent.
MEDIALDEA, J.:
This is a petition for review of the decision dated January 26, 1988 of the Court of Appeals in CA
GR CV No. 09010 (Concordia Villanueva v. Celedonia Solivio) affirming the decision of the trial
court in Civil Case No. 13207 for partition, reconveyance of ownership and possession and
damages, the dispositive portion of which reads as follows:
WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered for the plaintiff and against
defendant:
a) Ordering that the estate of the late Esteban Javellana, Jr. be divided into two
(2) shares: one-half for the plaintiff and one-half for defendant. From both
shares shall be equally deducted the expenses for the burial, mausoleum and
related expenditures. Against the share of defendants shall be charged the
expenses for scholarship, awards, donations and the 'Salustia Solivio Vda. de
Javellana Memorial Foundation;'
b) Directing the defendant to submit an inventory of the entire estate
property, including but not limited to, specific items already mentioned in this
decision and to render an accounting of the property of the estate, within
thirty (30) days from receipt of this judgment; one-half (1/2) of this produce
shall belong to plaintiff;
c) Ordering defendant to pay plaintiff P5,000.00 as expenses of litigation;
P10,000.00 for and as attorney's fees plus costs.
SO ORDERED. (pp. 42-43, Rollo)
This case involves the estate of the late novelist, Esteban Javellana, Jr., author of the first post-
war Filipino novel "Without Seeing the Dawn," who died a bachelor, without descendants,
ascendants, brothers, sisters, nephews or nieces. His only surviving relatives are: (1) his
maternal aunt, petitioner Celedonia Solivio, the spinster half-sister of his mother, Salustia Solivio;
and (2) the private respondent, Concordia Javellana-Villanueva, sister of his deceased father,
Esteban Javellana, Sr.
He was a posthumous child. His father died barely ten (10) months after his marriage in
December, 1916 to Salustia Solivio and four months before Esteban, Jr. was born.
Fernandez), a teacher in the Iloilo Provincial High School, brought up Esteban, Jr.
Salustia brought to her marriage paraphernal properties (various parcels of land in Calinog, Iloilo
covered by 24 titles) which she had inherited from her mother, Gregoria Celo, Engracio Solivio's
first wife (p. 325, Record), but no conjugal property was acquired during her short-lived
marriage to Esteban, Sr.
On October 11, 1959, Salustia died, leaving all her properties to her only child, Esteban, Jr.,
including a house and lot in La Paz, Iloilo City, where she, her son, and her sister lived. In due
time, the titles of all these properties were transferred in the name of Esteban, Jr.
During his lifetime, Esteban, Jr. had, more than once, expressed to his aunt Celedonia and some
close friends his plan to place his estate in a foundation to honor his mother and to help poor but
deserving students obtain a college education. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack on
February 26,1977 without having set up the foundation.
Two weeks after his funeral, Concordia and Celedonia talked about what to do with Esteban's
properties. Celedonia told Concordia about Esteban's desire to place his estate in a foundation to
be named after his mother, from whom his properties came, for the purpose of helping indigent
students in their schooling. Concordia agreed to carry out the plan of the deceased. This fact was
admitted by her in her "Motion to Reopen and/or Reconsider the Order dated April 3, 1978"
which she filed on July 27, 1978 in Special Proceeding No. 2540, where she stated:
4. That petitioner knew all along the narrated facts in the immediately
preceding paragraph [that herein movant is also the relative of the deceased
within the third degree, she being the younger sister of the late Esteban
Javellana, father of the decedent herein], because prior to the filing of the
petition they (petitioner Celedonia Solivio and movant Concordia Javellana)
have agreed to make the estate of the decedent a foundation, besides they have
closely known each other due to their filiation to the decedent and they have
been visiting each other's house which are not far away for (sic) each other.
(p. 234, Record; Emphasis supplied.)
Pursuant to their agreement that Celedonia would take care of the proceedings leading to the
formation of the foundation, Celedonia in good faith and upon the advice of her counsel, filed on
March 8, 1977 Spl. Proceeding No. 2540 for her appointment as special administratrix of the
estate of Esteban Javellana, Jr. (Exh. 2). Later, she filed an amended petition (Exh. 5) praying that
letters of administration be issued to her; that she be declared sole heir of the deceased; and that
after payment of all claims and rendition of inventory and accounting, the estate be adjudicated
to her (p. 115, Rollo).
After due publication and hearing of her petition, as well as her amended petition, she was
declared sole heir of the estate of Esteban Javellana, Jr. She explained that this was done for three
reasons: (1) because the properties of the estate had come from her sister, Salustia Solivio; (2)
that she is the decedent's nearest relative on his mother's side; and (3) with her as sole heir, the
disposition of the properties of the estate to fund the foundation would be facilitated.
On April 3, 1978, the court (Branch II, CFI, now Branch 23, RTC) declared her the sole heir of
Esteban, Jr. Thereafter, she sold properties of the estate to pay the taxes and other obligations of
the deceased and proceeded to set up the "SALUSTIA SOLIVIO VDA. DE JAVELLANA
FOUNDATION" which she caused to be registered in the Securities and Exchange Commission on
July 17,1981 under Reg. No. 0100027 (p. 98, Rollo).
Four months later, or on August 7, 1978, Concordia Javellana Villanueva filed a motion for
reconsideration of the court's order declaring Celedonia as "sole heir" of Esteban, Jr., because she
too was an heir of the deceased. On October 27, 1978, her motion was denied by the court for
tardiness (pp. 80-81, Record). Instead of appealing the denial, Concordia filed on January 7, 1980
(or one year and two months later), Civil Case No. 13207 in the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo,
Branch 26, entitled "Concordia Javellana- Villanueva v. Celedonia Solivio" for partition, recovery
of possession, ownership and damages.
On September 3, 1984, the said trial court rendered judgment in Civil Case No. 13207, in favor of
Concordia Javellana-Villanueva.
On Concordia's motion, the trial court ordered the execution of its judgment pending appeal and
required Celedonia to submit an inventory and accounting of the estate. In her motions for
reconsideration of those orders, Celedonia averred that the properties of the deceased had
already been transferred to, and were in the possession of, the 'Salustia Solivio Vda. de Javellana
Foundation." The trial court denied her motions for reconsideration.
In the meantime, Celedonia perfected an appeal to the Court of Appeals (CA GR CV No. 09010).
On January 26, 1988, the Court of Appeals, Eleventh Division, rendered judgment affirming the
decision of the trial court in toto.Hence, this petition for review wherein she raised the following
legal issues:
1. whether Branch 26 of the RTC of Iloilo had jurisdiction to entertain Civil
Case No. 13207 for partition and recovery of Concordia Villanueva's share of
the estate of Esteban Javellana, Jr. even while the probate proceedings (Spl.
Proc. No. 2540) were still pending in Branch 23 of the same court;
2. whether Concordia Villanueva was prevented from intervening in Spl. Proc.
No. 2540 through extrinsic fraud;
3. whether the decedent's properties were subject to reserva troncal in favor
of Celedonia, his relative within the third degree on his mother's side from
whom he had inherited them; and
4. whether Concordia may recover her share of the estate after she had agreed
to place the same in the Salustia Solivio Vda. de Javellana Foundation, and
notwithstanding the fact that conformably with said agreement, the
Foundation has been formed and properties of the estate have already been
transferred to it.
I. The question of jurisdiction—
After a careful review of the records, we find merit in the petitioner's contention that the Regional
Trial Court, Branch 26, lacked jurisdiction to entertain Concordia Villanueva's action for partition
and recovery of her share of the estate of Esteban Javellana, Jr. while the probate proceedings
(Spl, Proc. No. 2540) for the settlement of said estate are still pending in Branch 23 of the same
court, there being as yet no orders for the submission and approval of the administratix's
inventory and accounting, distributing the residue of the estate to the heir, and terminating the
proceedings (p. 31, Record).
It is the order of distribution directing the delivery of the residue of the estate to the persons
entitled thereto that brings to a close the intestate proceedings, puts an end to the administration
and thus far relieves the administrator from his duties (Santiesteban v. Santiesteban, 68 Phil.
367, Philippine Commercial and Industrial Bank v. Escolin, et al., L-27860, March 29, 1974, 56
SCRA 266).
The assailed order of Judge Adil in Spl. Proc. No. 2540 declaring Celedonia as the sole heir of the
estate of Esteban Javellana, Jr. did not toll the end of the proceedings. As a matter of fact, the last
paragraph of the order directed the administratrix to "hurry up the settlement of the estate." The
pertinent portions of the order are quoted below:
2. As regards the second incident [Motion for Declaration of Miss Celedonia
Solivio as Sole Heir, dated March 7, 1978], it appears from the record that
despite the notices posted and the publication of these proceedings as
required by law, no other heirs came out to interpose any opposition to the
instant proceeding. It further appears that herein Administratrix is the only
claimant-heir to the estate of the late Esteban Javellana who died on February
26, 1977.
During the hearing of the motion for declaration as heir on March 17, 1978, it
was established that the late Esteban Javellana died single, without any known
issue, and without any surviving parents. His nearest relative is the herein
Administratrix, an elder [sic] sister of his late mother who reared him and
with whom he had always been living with [sic] during his lifetime.
xxxxxxxxx
2. Miss Celedonia Solivio, Administratrix of this estate, is hereby declared as
the sole and legal heir of the late Esteban S. Javellana, who died intestate on
February 26, 1977 at La Paz, Iloilo City.
The Administratrix is hereby instructed to hurry up with the settlement of this
estate so that it can be terminated. (pp, 14-16, Record)
In view of the pendency of the probate proceedings in Branch 11 of the Court of First Instance
(now RTC, Branch 23), Concordia's motion to set aside the order declaring Celedonia as sole heir
of Esteban, and to have herself (Concordia) declared as co-heir and recover her share of the
properties of the deceased, was properly filed by her in Spl. Proc. No. 2540. Her remedy when
the court denied her motion, was to elevate the denial to the Court of Appeals for review on
certiorari. However, instead of availing of that remedy, she filed more than one year later, a
separate action for the same purpose in Branch 26 of the court. We hold that the separate action
was improperly filed for it is the probate court that has exclusive jurisdiction to make a just and
legal distribution of the estate.
In the interest of orderly procedure and to avoid confusing and conflicting dispositions of a
decedent's estate, a court should not interfere with probate proceedings pending in a co-equal
court. Thus, did we rule in Guilas v. Judge of the Court of First Instance of Pampanga, L-26695,
January 31, 1972, 43 SCRA 111, 117, where a daughter filed a separate action to annul a project
of partition executed between her and her father in the proceedings for the settlement of the
estate of her mother:
The probate court loses jurisdiction of an estate under administration only
after the payment of all the debts and the remaining estate delivered to the
heirs entitled to receive the same. The finality of the approval of the project of
The probate court, in the exercise of its jurisdiction to make distribution, has
power to determine the proportion or parts to which each distributed is
entitled. ... The power to determine the legality or illegality of the
testamentary provision is inherent in the jurisdiction of the court making a
just and legal distribution of the inheritance. ... To hold that a separate and
independent action is necessary to that effect, would be contrary to the
general tendency of the jurisprudence of avoiding multiplicity of suits; and is
further, expensive, dilatory, and impractical. (Marcelino v. Antonio, 70 Phil.
388)
A judicial declaration that a certain person is the only heir of the decedent is
exclusively within the range of the administratrix proceedings and can not
properly be made an independent action. (Litam v. Espiritu, 100 Phil. 364)
A separate action for the declaration of heirs is not proper. (Pimentel v.
Palanca, 5 Phil. 436)
partition by itself alone does not terminate the probate proceeding (Timbol v.
Cano, 1 SCRA 1271, 1276, L-15445, April 29, 1961; Siguiong v. Tecson, 89 Phil.
pp. 28, 30). As long as the order of the distribution of the estate has not been
complied with, the probate proceedings cannot be deemed closed and
terminated Siguiong v. Tecson, supra); because a judicial partition is not final
and conclusive and does not prevent the heirs from bringing an action to
obtain his share, provided the prescriptive period therefore has not elapsed
(Mari v. Bonilia, 83 Phil. 137). The better practice, however, for the heir who
has not received his share, is to demand his share through a proper motion in
the same probate or administration proceedings, or for reopening of the probate
or administrative proceedings if it had already been closed, and not through an
independent action, which would be tried by another court or Judge which
may thus reverse a decision or order of the probate or intestate court already
final and executed and re-shuffle properties long ago distributed and disposed
of. (Ramos v. Ortuzar, 89 Phil. 730, 741-742; Timbol v. Cano, supra; Jingco v.
Daluz, L-5107, April 24, 1953, 92 Phil. 1082; Roman Catholic v. Agustines, L-
14710, March 29, 1960, 107 Phil. 455, 460-461; Emphasis supplied)
In Litam et al., v. Rivera, 100 Phil. 364, where despite the pendency of the special proceedings for
the settlement of the intestate estate of the deceased Rafael Litam the plaintiffs-appellants filed
a civil action in which they claimed that they were the children by a previous marriage of the
deceased to a Chinese woman, hence, entitled to inherit his one-half share of the conjugal
properties acquired during his marriage to Marcosa Rivera, the trial court in the civil case
declared that the plaintiffs-appellants were not children of the deceased, that the properties in
question were paraphernal properties of his wife, Marcosa Rivera, and that the latter was his
only heir. On appeal to this Court, we ruled that "such declarations (that Marcosa Rivera was the
only heir of the decedent) is improper, in Civil Case No. 2071, it being within the exclusive
competence of the court in Special Proceedings No. 1537, in which it is not as yet, in issue, and, will
not be, ordinarily, in issue until the presentation of the project of partition. (p. 378).
However, in the Guilas case, supra, since the estate proceedings had been closed and terminated
for over three years, the action for annulment of the project of partition was allowed to continue.
Considering that in the instant case, the estate proceedings are still pending, but nonetheless,
Concordia had lost her right to have herself declared as co-heir in said proceedings, We have
opted likewise to proceed to discuss the merits of her claim in the interest of justice.
The orders of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 26, in Civil Case No. 13207 setting aside the
probate proceedings in Branch 23 (formerly Branch 11) on the ground of extrinsic fraud, and
declaring Concordia Villanueva to be a co-heir of Celedonia to the estate of Esteban, Jr., ordering
the partition of the estate, and requiring the administratrix, Celedonia, to submit an inventory
and accounting of the estate, were improper and officious, to say the least, for these matters he
within the exclusive competence of the probate court.
II. The question of extrinsic fraud—
Was Concordia prevented from intervening in the intestate proceedings by extrinsic
fraud employed by Celedonia? It is noteworthy that extrinsic fraud was not alleged in Concordia's
original complaint in Civil Case No. 13207. It was only in her amended complaint of March 6,
1980, that extrinsic fraud was alleged for the first time.
Extrinsic fraud, as a ground for annulment of judgment, is any act or conduct
of the prevailing party which prevented a fair submission of the controversy
(Francisco v. David, 38 O.G. 714). A fraud 'which prevents a party from having
a trial or presenting all of his case to the court, or one which operates upon
matters pertaining, not to the judgment itself, but to the manner by which
such judgment was procured so much so that there was no fair submission of
the controversy. For instance, if through fraudulent machination by one [his
adversary], a litigant was induced to withdraw his defense or was prevented
from presenting an available defense or cause of action in the case wherein
 the judgment was obtained, such that the aggrieved party was deprived of his
day in court through no fault of his own, the equitable relief against such
judgment may be availed of. (Yatco v. Sumagui, 44623-R, July 31, 1971). (cited
in Philippine Law Dictionary, 1972 Ed. by Moreno; Varela v. Villanueva, et al.,
96 Phil. 248)
A judgment may be annulled on the ground of extrinsic or collateral fraud, as
distinguished from intrinsic fraud, which connotes any fraudulent scheme
executed by a prevailing litigant 'outside the trial of a case against the defeated
party, or his agents, attorneys or witnesses, whereby said defeated party is
prevented from presenting fully and fairly his side of the case. ... The
overriding consideration is that the fraudulent scheme of the prevailing
litigant prevented a party from having his day in court or from presenting his
case. The fraud, therefore, is one that affects and goes into the jurisdiction of
the court. (Libudan v. Gil, L-21163, May 17, 1972, 45 SCRA 17, 27-29; Sterling
Investment Corp. v. Ruiz, L-30694, October 31, 1969, 30 SCRA 318, 323)
The charge of extrinsic fraud is, however, unwarranted for the following reasons:
1. Concordia was not unaware of the special proceeding intended to be filed
by Celedonia. She admitted in her complaint that she and Celedonia had
agreed that the latter would "initiate the necessary proceeding" and pay the
taxes and obligations of the estate. Thus paragraph 6 of her complaint alleged:
6. ... for the purpose of facilitating the settlement of the estate of the late
Esteban Javellana, Jr. at the lowest possible cost and the least effort, the
plaintiff and the defendant agreed that the defendant shall initiate the necessary
proceeding, cause the payment of taxes and other obligations, and to do
everything else required by law, and thereafter, secure the partition of the
estate between her and the plaintiff, [although Celedonia denied that they
agreed to partition the estate, for their agreement was to place the estate in a
foundation.] (p. 2, Record; emphasis supplied)
Evidently, Concordia was not prevented from intervening in the proceedings. She stayed away by
choice. Besides, she knew that the estate came exclusively from Esteban's mother, Salustia
Solivio, and she had agreed with Celedonia to place it in a foundation as the deceased had planned
to do.
2. The probate proceedings are proceedings in rem. Notice of the time and
place of hearing of the petition is required to be published (Sec. 3, Rule 76 in
relation to Sec. 3, Rule 79, Rules of Court). Notice of the hearing of Celedonia's
original petition was published in the "Visayan Tribune" on April 25, May 2
and 9, 1977 (Exh 4, p. 197, Record). Similarly, notice of the hearing of her
amended petition of May 26, 1977 for the settlement of the estate was, by
order of the court, published in "Bagong Kasanag" (New Light) issues of May
27, June 3 and 10, 1977 (pp. 182-305, Record). The publication of the notice
of the proceedings was constructive notice to the whole world. Concordia was
not deprived of her right to intervene in the proceedings for she had actual, as
well as constructive notice of the same. As pointed out by the probate court in
its order of October 27, 1978:
... . The move of Concordia Javellana, however, was filed about five months
after Celedonia Solivio was declared as the sole heir. ... .
Considering that this proceeding is one in rem and had been duly published
as required by law, despite which the present movant only came to court now,
then she is guilty of laches for sleeping on her alleged right. (p. 22, Record)
The court noted that Concordia's motion did not comply with the requisites of a petition for relief
from judgment nor a motion for new trial.
The rule is stated in 49 Corpus Juris Secundum 8030 as follows:
Where petition was sufficient to invoke statutory jurisdiction of probate court
and proceeding was in rem no subsequent errors or irregularities are available
on collateral attack. (Bedwell v. Dean 132 So. 20)
Celedonia's allegation in her petition that she was the sole heir of Esteban within the third degree
on his mother's side was not false. Moreover, it was made in good faith and in the honest belief
that because the properties of Esteban had come from his mother, not his father, she, as Esteban's
nearest surviving relative on his mother's side, is the rightful heir to them. It would have been
self-defeating and inconsistent with her claim of sole heirship if she stated in her petition that
Concordia was her co-heir. Her omission to so state did not constitute extrinsic fraud.
Failure to disclose to the adversary, or to the court, matters which would
defeat one's own claim or defense is not such extrinsic fraud as will justify or
require vacation of the judgment. (49 C.J.S. 489, citing Young v. Young, 2 SE 2d
622; First National Bank & Trust Co. of King City v. Bowman, 15 SW 2d 842;
Price v. Smith, 109 SW 2d 1144, 1149)
It should be remembered that a petition for administration of a decedent's estate may be filed by
any "interested person" (Sec. 2, Rule 79, Rules of Court). The filing of Celedonia's petition did not
preclude Concordia from filing her own.
III. On the question of reserva troncal—
We find no merit in the petitioner's argument that the estate of the deceased was subject
to reserva troncal and that it pertains to her as his only relative within the third degree on his
mother's side. The reserva troncal provision of the Civil Code is found in Article 891 which reads
as follows:
ART. 891. The ascendant who inherits from his descendant any property
which the latter may have acquired by gratuitous title from another
 ascendant, or a brother or sister, is obliged to reserve such property as he may
have acquired by operation of law for the benefit of relatives who are within
the third degree and who belong to the line from which said property came.
The persons involved in reserva troncal are:
1. The person obliged to reserve is the reservor (reservista)—the ascendant
who inherits by operation of law property from his descendants.
2. The persons for whom the property is reserved are the
reservees (reservatarios)—relatives within the third degree counted from the
descendant (propositus), and belonging to the line from which the property
came.
3. The propositus—the descendant who received by gratuitous title and died
without issue, making his other ascendant inherit by operation of law. (p. 692,
Civil Law by Padilla, Vol. II, 1956 Ed.)
Clearly, the property of the deceased, Esteban Javellana, Jr., is not reservable property, for
Esteban, Jr. was not an ascendant, but the descendant of his mother, Salustia Solivio, from whom
he inherited the properties in question. Therefore, he did not hold his inheritance subject to a
reservation in favor of his aunt, Celedonia Solivio, who is his relative within the third degree on
his mother's side. The reserva troncal applies to properties inherited by an ascendant from a
descendant who inherited it from another ascendant or 9 brother or sister. It does not apply to
property inherited by a descendant from his ascendant, the reverse of the situation covered by
Article 891.
Since the deceased, Esteban Javellana, Jr., died without descendants, ascendants, illegitimate
children, surviving spouse, brothers, sisters, nephews or nieces, what should apply in the
distribution of his estate are Articles 1003 and 1009 of the Civil Code which provide:
ART. 1003. If there are no descendants, ascendants, illegitimate children, or a
surviving spouse, the collateral relatives shall succeed to the entire estate of
the deceased in accordance with the following articles.
ART. 1009. Should there be neither brothers nor sisters, nor children of
brothers or sisters, the other collateral relatives shall succeed to the estate.
The latter shall succeed without distinction of lines or preference among them
by reason of relationship by the whole blood.
Therefore, the Court of Appeals correctly held that:
Both plaintiff-appellee and defendant-appellant being relatives of the
decedent within the third degree in the collateral line, each, therefore, shall
succeed to the subject estate 'without distinction of line or preference among
them by reason of relationship by the whole blood,' and is entitled one-half
(1/2) share and share alike of the estate. (p. 57, Rollo)
IV. The question of Concordia's one-half share—
However, inasmuch as Concordia had agreed to deliver the estate of the deceased to the
foundation in honor of his mother, Salustia Solivio Vda. de Javellana (from whom the estate
came), an agreement which she ratified and confirmed in her "Motion to Reopen and/or
Reconsider Order dated April 3, 1978" which she filed in Spl. Proceeding No. 2540:
4. That ... prior to the filing of the petition they (petitioner Celedonia Solivio and
movant Concordia Javellana) have agreed to make the estate of the decedent a
foundation, besides they have closely known each other due to their filiation
to the decedent and they have been visiting each other's house which are not
far away for (sic) each other. (p. 234, Record; Emphasis supplied)
she is bound by that agreement. It is true that by that agreement, she did not waive her
inheritance in favor of Celedonia, but she did agree to place all of Esteban's estate in the "Salustia
Solivio Vda. de Javellana Foundation" which Esteban, Jr., during his lifetime, planned to set up to
honor his mother and to finance the education of indigent but deserving students as well.
Her admission may not be taken lightly as the lower court did. Being a judicial admission, it is
conclusive and no evidence need be presented to prove the agreement (Cunanan v. Amparo, 80
Phil. 227; Granada v. Philippine National Bank, L-20745, Sept. 2, 1966, 18 SCRA 1; Sta. Ana v.
Maliwat, L-23023, Aug. 31, 1968, 24 SCRA 1018; People v. Encipido, G.R.70091, Dec. 29, 1986,
146 SCRA 478; and Rodillas v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. 58652, May 20, 1988, 161 SCRA 347).
The admission was never withdrawn or impugned by Concordia who, significantly, did not even
testify in the case, although she could have done so by deposition if she were supposedly
indisposed to attend the trial. Only her husband, Narciso, and son-in-law, Juanito Domin, actively
participated in the trial. Her husband confirmed the agreement between his wife and Celedonia,
but he endeavored to dilute it by alleging that his wife did not intend to give all, but only one-half,
of her share to the foundation (p. 323, Record).
The records show that the "Salustia Solivio Vda. de Javellana Foundation" was established and
duly registered in the Securities and Exchange Commission under Reg. No. 0100027 for the
following principal purposes:
1. To provide for the establishment and/or setting up of scholarships for such
deserving students as the Board of Trustees of the Foundation may decide of
at least one scholar each to study at West Visayas State College, and the
University of the Philippines in the Visayas both located in Iloilo City.
2. To provide a scholarship for at least one scholar for St. Clements
Redemptorist Community for a deserving student who has the religious
vocation to become a priest.
 3. To foster, develop, and encourage activities that will promote the
advancement and enrichment of the various fields of educational endeavors,
especially in literary arts. Scholarships provided for by this foundation may
be named after its benevolent benefactors as a token of gratitude for their
contributions.
4. To direct or undertake surveys and studies in the community to determine
community needs and be able to alleviate partially or totally said needs.
5. To maintain and provide the necessary activities for the proper care of the
Solivio-Javellana mausoleum at Christ the King Memorial Park, Jaro, Iloilo
City, and the Javellana Memorial at the West Visayas State College, as a token
of appreciation for the contribution of the estate of the late Esteban S.
Javellana which has made this foundation possible. Also, in perpetuation of his
Roman Catholic beliefs and those of his mother, Gregorian masses or their
equivalents will be offered every February and October, and Requiem masses
every February 25th and October llth, their death anniversaries, as part of this
provision.
6. To receive gifts, legacies, donations, contributions, endowments and
financial aids or loans from whatever source, to invest and reinvest the funds,
collect the income thereof and pay or apply only the income or such part
thereof as shall be determined by the Trustees for such endeavors as may be
necessary to carry out the objectives of the Foundation.
7. To acquire, purchase, own, hold, operate, develop, lease, mortgage, pledge,
exchange, sell, transfer, or otherwise, invest, trade, or deal, in any manner
permitted by law, in real and personal property of every kind and description
or any interest herein.
8. To do and perform all acts and things necessary, suitable or proper for the
accomplishments of any of the purposes herein enumerated or which shall at
any time appear conducive to the protection or benefit of the corporation,
including the exercise of the powers, authorities and attributes concerned
upon the corporation organized under the laws of the Philippines in general,
and upon domestic corporation of like nature in particular. (pp. 9-10, Rollo)
As alleged without contradiction in the petition' for review:
The Foundation began to function in June, 1982, and three (3) of its eight
Esteban Javellana scholars graduated in 1986, one (1) from UPV graduated
Cum Laude and two (2) from WVSU graduated with honors; one was a Cum
Laude and the other was a recipient of Lagos Lopez award for teaching for
being the most outstanding student teacher.
The Foundation has four (4) high school scholars in Guiso Barangay High
School, the site of which was donated by the Foundation. The School has been
selected as the Pilot Barangay High School for Region VI.
The Foundation has a special scholar, Fr. Elbert Vasquez, who would be
ordained this year. He studied at St. Francis Xavier Major Regional Seminary
at Davao City. The Foundation likewise is a member of the Redemptorist
Association that gives yearly donations to help poor students who want to
become Redemptorist priests or brothers. It gives yearly awards for Creative
writing known as the Esteban Javellana Award.
Further, the Foundation had constructed the Esteban S. Javellana Multi-
purpose Center at the West Visayas State University for teachers' and
students' use, and has likewise contributed to religious civic and cultural
fund-raising drives, amongst other's. (p. 10, Rollo)
Having agreed to contribute her share of the decedent's estate to the Foundation, Concordia is
obligated to honor her commitment as Celedonia has honored hers.
WHEREFORE, the petition for review is granted. The decision of the trial court and the Court of
Appeals are hereby SET ASIDE. Concordia J. Villanueva is declared an heir of the late Esteban
Javellana, Jr. entitled to one-half of his estate. However, comformably with the agreement
between her and her co-heir, Celedonia Solivio, the entire estate of the deceased should be
conveyed to the "Salustia Solivio Vda. de Javallana Foundation," of which both the petitioner and
the private respondent shall be trustees, and each shall be entitled to nominate an equal number
of trustees to constitute the Board of Trustees of the Foundation which shall administer the same
for the purposes set forth in its charter. The petitioner, as administratrix of the estate, shall
submit to the probate court an inventory and accounting of the estate of the deceased
preparatory to terminating the proceedings therein.
SO ORDERED.
G.R. No. 157451 December 16, 2005
LETICIA VALMONTE ORTEGA, Petitioner,
vs.
JOSEFINA C. VALMONTE, Respondent.
DECISION
PANGANIBAN, J.:
The law favors the probate of a will. Upon those who oppose it rests the burden of showing why
it should not be allowed. In the present case, petitioner has failed to discharge this burden
satisfactorily. For this reason, the Court cannot attribute any reversible error on the part of the
appellate tribunal that allowed the probate of the will.
The Case
Before the Court is a Petition for Review1 under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court, seeking to reverse
and set aside the December 12, 2002 Decision2 and the March 7, 2003 Resolution3 of the Court of
Appeals (CA) in CA-GR CV No. 44296. The assailed Decision disposed as follows:
"WHEREFORE, the appeal is GRANTED, and the Decision appealed from is REVERSED and SET
ASIDE. In its place judgment is rendered approving and allowing probate to the said last will and
testament of Placido Valmonte and ordering the issuance of letters testamentary to the petitioner
Josefina Valmonte. Let this case be remanded to the court a quo for further and concomitant
proceedings."4
The assailed Resolution denied petitioner’s Motion for Reconsideration.
The Facts
The facts were summarized in the assailed Decision of the CA, as follows:
"x x x: Like so many others before him, Placido toiled and lived for a long time in the United States
until he finally reached retirement. In 1980, Placido finally came home to stay in the Philippines,
and he lived in the house and lot located at #9200 Catmon St., San Antonio Village, Makati, which
he owned in common with his sister Ciriaca Valmonte and titled in their names in TCT 123468.
Two years after his arrival from the United States and at the age of 80 he wed Josefina who was
then 28 years old, in a ceremony solemnized by Judge Perfecto Laguio, Jr. on February 5, 1982.
But in a little more than two years of wedded bliss, Placido died on October 8, 1984 of a cause
written down as COR PULMONALE.
"Placido executed a notarial last will and testament written in English and consisting of two (2)
pages, and dated June 15, 1983 but acknowledged only on August 9, 1983. The first page contains
the entire testamentary dispositions and a part of the attestation clause, and was signed at the
end or bottom of that page by the testator and on the left hand margin by the three instrumental
witnesses. The second page contains the continuation of the attestation clause and the
acknowledgment, and was signed by the witnesses at the end of the attestation clause and again
on the left hand margin. It provides in the body that:
‘LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF PLACIDO VALMONTE IN THE NAME OF THE LORD AMEN:
‘I, PLACIDO VALMONTE, of legal age, married to Josefina Cabansag Valmonte, and a resident of
9200 Catmon Street, Makati, Metro Manila, 83 years of age and being of sound and disposing
mind and memory, do hereby declare this to be my last will and testament:
1. It is my will that I be buried in the Catholic Cemetery, under the auspices of the Catholic Church
in accordance with the rites and said Church and that a suitable monument to be erected and
provided my by executrix (wife) to perpetuate my memory in the minds of my family and friends;
2. I give, devise and bequeath unto my loving wife, JOSEFINA C. VALMONTE, one half (1/2)
portion of the follow-described properties, which belongs to me as [co-owner]:
a. Lot 4-A, Block 13 described on plan Psd-28575, LRC, (GLRO), situated in Makati, Metro Manila,
described and covered by TCT No. 123468 of the Register of Deeds of Pasig, Metro-Manila
registered jointly as co-owners with my deceased sister (Ciriaca Valmonte), having share and
share alike;
b. 2-storey building standing on the above-described property, made of strong and mixed
materials used as my residence and my wife and located at No. 9200 Catmon Street, Makati,
Metro Manila also covered by Tax Declaration No. A-025-00482, Makati, Metro-Manila, jointly in
the name of my deceased sister, Ciriaca Valmonte and myself as co-owners, share and share alike
or equal co-owners thereof;
3. All the rest, residue and remainder of my real and personal properties, including my savings
account bank book in USA which is in the possession of my nephew, and all others whatsoever
and wherever found, I give, devise and bequeath to my said wife, Josefina C. Valmonte;
4. I hereby appoint my wife, Josefina C. Valmonte as sole executrix of my last will and testament,
and it is my will that said executrix be exempt from filing a bond;
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 15th day of June 1983 in Quezon City,
Philippines.’
"The allowance to probate of this will was opposed by Leticia on the grounds that:
1. Petitioner failed to allege all assets of the testator, especially those found in the USA;
2. Petitioner failed to state the names, ages, and residences of the heirs of the testator; or to give
them proper notice pursuant to law;
3. Will was not executed and attested as required by law and legal solemnities and formalities
were not complied with;
4. Testator was mentally incapable to make a will at the time of the alleged execution he being in
an advance sate of senility;
5. Will was executed under duress, or the influence of fear or threats;
6. Will was procured by undue and improper influence and pressure on the part of the petitioner
and/or her agents and/or assistants; and/or
7. Signature of testator was procured by fraud, or trick, and he did not intend that the instrument
should be his will at the time of affixing his signature thereto;’
and she also opposed the appointment as Executrix of Josefina alleging her want of
understanding and integrity.
"At the hearing, the petitioner Josefina testified and called as witnesses the notary public Atty.
Floro Sarmiento who prepared and notarized the will, and the instrumental witnesses spouses
Eugenio Gomez, Jr. and Feliza Gomez and Josie Collado. For the opposition, the oppositor Leticia
and her daughter Mary Jane Ortega testified.
"According to Josefina after her marriage with the testator they lived in her parents house at
Salingcob, Bacnotan, La Union but they came to Manila every month to get his $366.00 monthly
pension and stayed at the said Makati residence. There were times though when to shave off on
expenses, the testator would travel alone. And it was in one of his travels by his lonesome self
when the notarial will was made. The will was witnessed by the spouses Eugenio and Feliza
Gomez, who were their wedding sponsors, and by Josie Collado. Josefina said she had no
knowledge of the existence of the last will and testament of her husband, but just serendipitously
found it in his attache case after his death. It was only then that she learned that the testator
bequeathed to her his properties and she was named the executrix in the said will. To her
estimate, the value of property both real and personal left by the testator is worth more or less
P100,000.00. Josefina declared too that the testator never suffered mental infirmity because
despite his old age he went alone to the market which is two to three kilometers from their home
cooked and cleaned the kitchen and sometimes if she could not accompany him, even traveled to
Manila alone to claim his monthly pension. Josefina also asserts that her husband was in good
health and that he was hospitalized only because of a cold but which eventually resulted in his
death.
"Notary Public Floro Sarmiento, the notary public who notarized the testator’s will, testified that
it was in the first week of June 1983 when the testator together with the three witnesses of the
will went to his house cum law office and requested him to prepare his last will and testament.
After the testator instructed him on the terms and dispositions he wanted on the will, the notary
public told them to come back on June 15, 1983 to give him time to prepare it. After he had
prepared the will the notary public kept it safely hidden and locked in his drawer. The testator
and his witnesses returned on the appointed date but the notary public was out of town so they
were instructed by his wife to come back on August 9, 1983, and which they did. Before the
testator and his witnesses signed the prepared will, the notary public explained to them each and
every term thereof in Ilocano, a dialect which the testator spoke and understood. He likewise
explained that though it appears that the will was signed by the testator and his witnesses on
June 15, 1983, the day when it should have been executed had he not gone out of town, the formal
execution was actually on August 9, 1983. He reasoned that he no longer changed the typewritten
date of June 15, 1983 because he did not like the document to appear dirty. The notary public
also testified that to his observation the testator was physically and mentally capable at the time
he affixed his signature on the will.
"The attesting witnesses to the will corroborated the testimony of the notary public, and testified
that the testator went alone to the house of spouses Eugenio and Feliza Gomez at GSIS Village,
Quezon City and requested them to accompany him to the house of Atty. Floro Sarmiento
purposely for his intended will; that after giving his instructions to Atty. Floro Sarmiento, they
were told to return on June 15, 1983; that they returned on June 15, 1983 for the execution of
the will but were asked to come back instead on August 9, 1983 because of the absence of the
notary public; that the testator executed the will in question in their presence while he was of
sound and disposing mind and that he was strong and in good health; that the contents of the will
was explained by the notary public in the Ilocano and Tagalog dialect and that all of them as
witnesses attested and signed the will in the presence of the testator and of each other. And that
during the execution, the testator’s wife, Josefina was not with them.
"The oppositor Leticia declared that Josefina should not inherit alone because aside from her
there are other children from the siblings of Placido who are just as entitled to inherit from him.
She attacked the mental capacity of the testator, declaring that at the time of the execution of the
notarial will the testator was already 83 years old and was no longer of sound mind. She knew
whereof she spoke because in 1983 Placido lived in the Makati residence and asked Leticia’s
family to live with him and they took care of him. During that time, the testator’s physical and
mental condition showed deterioration, aberrations and senility. This was corroborated by her
daughter Mary Jane Ortega for whom Placido took a fancy and wanted to marry.
"Sifting through the evidence, the court a quo held that [t]he evidence adduced, reduces the
opposition to two grounds, namely:
1. Non-compliance with the legal solemnities and formalities in the execution and attestation of the
will; and
2. Mental incapacity of the testator at the time of the execution of the will as he was then in an
advanced state of senility
"It then found these grounds extant and proven, and accordingly disallowed probate."5
Ruling of the Court of Appeals
Reversing the trial court, the appellate court admitted the will of Placido Valmonte to probate.
The CA upheld the credibility of the notary public and the subscribing witnesses who had
acknowledged the due execution of the will. Moreover, it held that the testator had testamentary
capacity at the time of the execution of the will. It added that his "sexual exhibitionism and
unhygienic, crude and impolite ways"6 did not make him a person of unsound mind.
Hence, this Petition.7
Issues
Petitioner raises the following issues for our consideration:
"I.
Whether or not the findings of the probate court are entitled to great respect.
"II.
Whether or not the signature of Placido Valmonte in the subject will was procured by fraud or
trickery, and that Placido Valmonte never intended that the instrument should be his last will
and testament.
"III.
Whether or not Placido Valmonte has testamentary capacity at the time he allegedly executed
the subject will."8
In short, petitioner assails the CA’s allowance of the probate of the will of Placido Valmonte.
This Court’s Ruling
The Petition has no merit.
Main Issue:
Probate of a Will
At the outset, we stress that only questions of law may be raised in a Petition for Review under
Section 1 of Rule 45 of the Rules of Court. As an exception, however, the evidence presented
during the trial may be examined and the factual matters resolved by this Court when, as in the
instant case, the findings of fact of the appellate court differ from those of the trial court.9
The fact that public policy favors the probate of a will does not necessarily mean that every will
presented for probate should be allowed. The law lays down the procedures and requisites that
must be satisfied for the probate of a will.10 Verily, Article 839 of the Civil Code states the
instances when a will may be disallowed, as follows:
"Article 839. The will shall be disallowed in any of the following cases:
(1) If the formalities required by law have not been complied with;
(2) If the testator was insane, or otherwise mentally incapable of making a will, at the time of its
execution;
(3) If it was executed through force or under duress, or the influence of fear, or threats;
(4) If it was procured by undue and improper pressure and influence, on the part of the
beneficiary or of some other person;
(5) If the signature of the testator was procured by fraud;
(6) If the testator acted by mistake or did not intend that the instrument he signed should be his
will at the time of affixing his signature thereto."
In the present case, petitioner assails the validity of Placido Valmonte’s will by imputing fraud in
its execution and challenging the testator’s state of mind at the time.
Existence of Fraud in the
Execution of a Will
Petitioner does not dispute the due observance of the formalities in the execution of the will, but
maintains that the circumstances surrounding it are indicative of the existence of fraud.
Particularly, she alleges that respondent, who is the testator’s wife and sole beneficiary,
conspired with the notary public and the three attesting witnesses in deceiving Placido to sign it.
Deception is allegedly reflected in the varying dates of the execution and the attestation of the
will.
Petitioner contends that it was "highly dubious for a woman at the prime of her young life [to]
almost immediately plunge into marriage with a man who [was] thrice her age x x x and who
happened to be [a] Fil-American pensionado,"11 thus casting doubt on the intention of
respondent in seeking the probate of the will. Moreover, it supposedly "defies human reason,
logic and common experience"12 for an old man with a severe psychological condition to have
willingly signed a last will and testament.
We are not convinced. Fraud "is a trick, secret device, false statement, or pretense, by which the
subject of it is cheated. It may be of such character that the testator is misled or deceived as to
the nature or contents of the document which he executes, or it may relate to some extrinsic fact,
in consequence of the deception regarding which the testator is led to make a certain will which,
but for the fraud, he would not have made."13
We stress that the party challenging the will bears the burden of proving the existence of fraud
at the time of its execution.14 The burden to show otherwise shifts to the proponent of the will
only upon a showing of credible evidence of fraud.15 Unfortunately in this case, other than the
self-serving allegations of petitioner, no evidence of fraud was ever presented.
It is a settled doctrine that the omission of some relatives does not affect the due execution of a
will.16 That the testator was tricked into signing it was not sufficiently established by the fact that
he had instituted his wife, who was more than fifty years his junior, as the sole beneficiary; and
disregarded petitioner and her family, who were the ones who had taken "the cudgels of taking
care of [the testator] in his twilight years."17
Moreover, as correctly ruled by the appellate court, the conflict between the dates appearing on
the will does not invalidate the document, "because the law does not even require that a
[notarial] will x x x be executed and acknowledged on the same occasion."18 More important, the
will must be subscribed by the testator, as well as by three or more credible witnesses who must
also attest to it in the presence of the testator and of one another.19Furthermore, the testator and
the witnesses must acknowledge the will before a notary public.20 In any event, we agree with
the CA that "the variance in the dates of the will as to its supposed execution and attestation was
satisfactorily and persuasively explained by the notary public and the instrumental witnesses."21
The pertinent transcript of stenographic notes taken on June 11, 1985, November 25, 1985,
October 13, 1986, and October 21, 1987 -- as quoted by the CA -- are reproduced respectively as
follows:
"Atty. Floro Sarmiento:
Q You typed this document exhibit C, specifying the date June 15 when the testator and his
witnesses were supposed to be in your office?
A Yes sir.
Q On June 15, 1983, did the testator and his witnesses come to your house?
A They did as of agreement but unfortunately, I was out of town.
xxxxxxxxx
Q The document has been acknowledged on August 9, 1983 as per acknowledgement appearing
therein. Was this the actual date when the document was acknowledged?
A Yes sir.
Q What about the date when the testator and the three witnesses affixed their respective
signature on the first and second pages of exhibit C?
A On that particular date when it was acknowledged, August 9, 1983.
Q Why did you not make the necessary correction on the date appearing on the body of the
document as well as the attestation clause?
A Because I do not like anymore to make some alterations so I put it in my own handwriting
August 9, 1983 on the acknowledgement. (tsn, June 11, 1985, pp. 8-10)
Eugenio Gomez:
Q It appears on the first page Mr. Witness that it is dated June 15, 1983, whereas in the
acknowledgement it is dated August 9, 1983, will you look at this document and tell us this
discrepancy in the date?
A We went to Atty. Sarmiento together with Placido Valmonte and the two witnesses; that was
first week of June and Atty. Sarmiento told us to return on the 15th of June but when we returned,
Atty. Sarmiento was not there.
Q When you did not find Atty. Sarmiento on June 15, 1983, did you again go back?
A We returned on the 9th of August and there we signed.
Q This August 9, 1983 where you said it is there where you signed, who were your companions?
A The two witnesses, me and Placido Valmonte. (tsn, November 25, 1985, pp. 7-8)
Felisa Gomez on cross-examination:
Q Why did you have to go to the office of Atty. Floro Sarmiento, three times?
xxxxxxxxx
A The reason why we went there three times is that, the first week of June was out first time. We
went there to talk to Atty. Sarmiento and Placido Valmonte about the last will and testament.
After that what they have talked what will be placed in the testament, what Atty. Sarmiento said
was that he will go back on the 15th of June. When we returned on June 15, Atty. Sarmiento was
not there so we were not able to sign it, the will. That is why, for the third time we went there on
August 9 and that was the time we affixed our signature. (tsn, October 13, 1986, pp. 4-6)
Josie Collado:
Q When you did not find Atty. Sarmiento in his house on June 15, 1983, what transpired?
A The wife of Atty. Sarmiento told us that we will be back on August 9, 1983.
Q And on August 9, 1983 did you go back to the house of Atty. Sarmiento?
A Yes, Sir.
Q For what purpose? It must be noted that despite his advanced age, he was still able to identify accurately the kinds
of property he owned, the extent of his shares in them and even their locations. As regards the
A Our purpose is just to sign the will. proper objects of his bounty, it was sufficient that he identified his wife as sole beneficiary. As we
have stated earlier, the omission of some relatives from the will did not affect its formal validity.
There being no showing of fraud in its execution, intent in its disposition becomes irrelevant.
Q Were you able to sign the will you mentioned?
Worth reiterating in determining soundness of mind is Alsua-Betts v. CA,25 which held thus:
A Yes sir. (tsn, October 21, 1987, pp. 4-5)"22
"Between the highest degree of soundness of mind and memory which unquestionably carries
Notably, petitioner failed to substantiate her claim of a "grand conspiracy" in the commission of with it full testamentary capacity, and that degrees of mental aberration generally known as
a fraud. There was no showing that the witnesses of the proponent stood to receive any benefit insanity or idiocy, there are numberless degrees of mental capacity or incapacity and while on
from the allowance of the will. The testimonies of the three subscribing witnesses and the notary one hand it has been held that mere weakness of mind, or partial imbecility from disease of body,
are credible evidence of its due execution.23 Their testimony favoring it and the finding that it or from age, will not render a person incapable of making a will; a weak or feebleminded person
was executed in accordance with the formalities required by law should be affirmed, absent any may make a valid will, provided he has understanding and memory sufficient to enable him to
showing of ill motives.24 know what he is about to do and how or to whom he is disposing of his property. To constitute a
sound and disposing mind, it is not necessary that the mind be unbroken or unimpaired or
Capacity to Make a Will unshattered by disease or otherwise. It has been held that testamentary incapacity does not
necessarily require that a person shall actually be insane or of unsound mind."26
In determining the capacity of the testator to make a will, the Civil Code gives the following
guidelines: WHEREFORE, the Petition is DENIED, and the assailed Decision and Resolution of the Court of
Appeals are AFFIRMED. Costs against petitioner.
"Article 798. In order to make a will it is essential that the testator be of sound mind at the time
of its execution. SO ORDERED.

"Article 799. To be of sound mind, it is not necessary that the testator be in full possession of all
his reasoning faculties, or that his mind be wholly unbroken, unimpaired, or shattered by disease,
injury or other cause.

"It shall be sufficient if the testator was able at the time of making the will to know the nature of
the estate to be disposed of, the proper objects of his bounty, and the character of the
testamentary act.

"Article 800. The law presumes that every person is of sound mind, in the absence of proof to the
contrary.

"The burden of proof that the testator was not of sound mind at the time of making his
dispositions is on the person who opposes the probate of the will; but if the testator, one month,
or less, before making his will was publicly known to be insane, the person who maintains the
validity of the will must prove that the testator made it during a lucid interval."

According to Article 799, the three things that the testator must have the ability to know to be
considered of sound mind are as follows: (1) the nature of the estate to be disposed of, (2) the
proper objects of the testator’s bounty, and (3) the character of the testamentary act. Applying
this test to the present case, we find that the appellate court was correct in holding that Placido
had testamentary capacity at the time of the execution of his will.
G.R. No. L-29901 August 31, 1977
IGNACIO FRIAS CHUA, DOMINADOR CHUA and REMEDIOS CHUA, petitioners,
vs.
THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, BRANCH V and SUSANA DE LA
TORRE, in her capacity as Administratrix of the Intestate Estate of Consolacion de la
Torre, respondents.
Dominador G. Abaria and Primitivo Blanca for private respondent.
Rodrigo O. Delfinado for petitioners.
MARTIN, J.:
Petition for review of the decision of the respondent Court which dismissed the complaint of
petitioners in Civil Case No. 7839-A, entitled "Ignacio Frias Chua, et al. vs. Susana de la Torre,
Administratrix of the Intestate Estate of Consolacion de la Torre"
It appears that in the first marriage of Jose Frias Chua with Patricia S. Militar alias Sy Quio he
sired three children, namely: Ignacio, Lorenzo and Manuel, all surnamed Frias Chua. When
Patricia S. Militar died, Jose Frias Chua contracted a second marriage with Consolacion de la
Torre with whom he had a child by the name of Juanita Frias Chua. Manuel Frias Chua died
without leaving any issue. Then in 1929, Jose Frias Chua died intestate leaving his widow
Consolacion de la Torre and his son Juanito Frias Chua of the second marriage and sons Ignacio
Frias Chua and Lorenzo Frias Chua of his first marriage. In Intestate Proceeding No. 4816, the
lower court issued an order dated January 15, 1931 1 adjudicating, among others, the one-half
(1/2,) portion of Lot No. 399 and the sum of P8,000.00 in favor of Jose Frias Chua's widow,
Consolacion de la Torre, the other half of Lot No. 399 in favor of Juanito Frias Chua, his son in the
second marriage; P3,000.00 in favor of Lorenze Frias chua; and P1,550.00 in favor of Ignacio
Frias, Chua, his sons of the first marriage. By virtue of said adjudication, Transfer Certificate of
Title No. TR-980 (14483) 2 dated April 28, 1932 was issued by the Register of Deeds in the names
of Consolacion de la Torre and Juanito Frias Chua as owners pro-indiviso of Lot No. 399.
On February 27, 1952, Juanito Frias Chua of the second marriage died intestate without any issue.
After his death, his mother Consolacion de la Torre succeeded to his pro-indivisio share of Lot
No. 399. In a week's time or on March 6, 1952, Consolacion de la Torre executed a declaration of
heirship adjudicating in her favor the pro-indiviso share of her son Juanito as a result of which
Transfer Certificate of Title No. 31796 covering the whole Lot No. 399 was issued in her name.
Then on March 5, 1966, Consolacion de la Torre died intestate leaving no direct heir either in the
descending or ascending line except her brother and sisters.
In the "Intestate Estate of Consolacion de la Torre", docketed as Sp. Proc. No. 7839-A, the
petitioners herein, Ignacio Frias Chua, of the first marriage and dominador and Remedios Chua,
the supposed legitimate children of the deceased Lorenzo Frias Chua, also of the first marriage
filed the complaint a quo 3 (subseqently segregated as a distinct suit and docketed as Civil Case
No. 7839-A) on May 11, 1966 before the respondent Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental,
Branch V, praying that the one-half (1/2) portion of Lot No. 399 which formerly belonged to
Juanito Frias but which passed to Consolacion de la Torre upon the latter's death, be declaredas
a reservable property for the reason that the lot in questionn was subject to reserval
troncal pursuant to Article 981 of the New Civil Code, Private respondent as administratrix of the
estate of individually the complaint of petitioners 4
On July 29, 1986, the respondent Court rendered a decision dismissing the complaint of
petitioner. Hence this instant.
The pertinent provision of reserva troncal under the New Civil Code provides:
ART. 891. The ascendant who inheritts from his descendant any property
which the latter may have acquired by gratuitous title from another ascendat,
or a brother or sister, is obliged to reserve such property as he may have
acquired by operation of law for the benefit of relatives who are within the
third degree and belong to the line from which said property came.
Persuant to the foregoing provision, in order that a property may be impressed with a reservable
character the following requisites must exist, to wit: (1) that the property was acquired by a
descendant from an asscendant or from a brother or sister by gratuitous title; (2) that said
descendant died without an issue; (3) that the property is inherited by another ascendant by
operation of law; and (4) that there are relatives within the third degree belonging to the line
from which said property came. 5 In the case before Us, all of the foregoing requisites are present.
Thus, as borne out by the records, Juanoito Frias Chua of the second marriage died intestate in
1952; he died withour leaving any issue; his pro-indiviso of 1/2 share of Lot No. 399 was acquired
by his mother, Consolacion de la Torre died, Juannnito Frias Chua who died intestate had
relatives within the third degree. These relatives are Ignacio Frias Chua and Dominador Chua
and Remidios Chua, the suppose legitimate children of the deceased Lorenzo Frias Chua, who are
the petitioners herein.
The crux of the problem in instant petition is focused on the first requisit of reserva troncal
— whether the property in question was acquired by Juanito Frias Chua from his father Jose Frias
Chua, gratuitously or not. In resolving this point, the respondent Court said:
It appears from Exh. "3", which is part of Exh. "D", that the property in
question was not acquired by Consolacion de la Torre and Juanito Frias
Chua gratuitously but for a consideration, namely, that the legatees were to
pay the interest and cost and other fees resulting from Civil Case No. 5300 of
this Court. As such it is undeniable that the lot in question is not subject tot
a reserva troncal, under Art. 891 of the New Civil Code, and as such the
plaintiff's complaint must fail.
We are not prepared to sustain the respondent Court's conclusion that the lot in question is not
subject to a reserva troncal under Art. 891 of the New Civil Code. It is, As explained by Manresa
which this Court quoted with approval in Cabardo v. Villanueva, 44 Phil. 186, "The transmission
is gratuitous or by gratuitous title when the recipient does not give anything in return." It matters
not whether the property transmitted be or be not subject to any prior charges; what is essential
is that the transmission be made gratuitously, or by an act of mere liberality of the person making
it, without imposing any obligation on the part of the recipient; and that the person receiving the
property gives or does nothing in return; or, as ably put by an eminent Filipino
commentator, 6 "the essential thing is that the person who transmits it does so gratuitously, from
pure generosity, without requiring from the transferee any prestation." It is evident from the
record that the transmission of the property in question to Juanito Frias Chua of the second
marriage upon the death of his father Jose Frias Chua was by means of a hereditary succession
and therefore gratuitous. It is true that there is the order (Exh. "D") of the probate Court in
Intestate Proceeding No. 4816 which estates in express terms;
2. — Se adjudicada pro el presente a favor de Consolacion de la Torre, viuda,
mayor de edad, y de su hiju, Juanito Frias Chua, menor de edad, todos
residente de San Enrique, Negros Occidental, I.F.,como herederos del finado
Jose Frias Chua Choo, estas propiadades:
14483
La parcela de terrenno concida por Lote No. 399 del Catsatro de la Carlota,
Negros Occidental, de 191.954 metros cuadddrados y cubierto por el
Certificado de Titulo No. 11759, en partes equales pro-indiviso; por con la
obligscion de pagar a las Standard Oil Co. of New York la deuda de P3971.20,
sus intereses, costas y demas gastos resultantes del asunto civil No. 5300de este
jusgado
under Art. 891 of the Civil Code in favor of relatives within the third degree of Jose Frias Chua
from whom the property came. These relatives are the petitioner herein.
It is claimed that the complaint of petitioners to recover the one-half portion of Lot 399 which
originally belonged to Juanito Frias Chua has already prescribed when it was filed on May 11,
1966. We do not believe so. It must be remembered that the petitioners herein are claiming as
reservees did not arise until the time the reservor, Consolacion de la Torre, died in March 1966.
When the petitioners therefore filed their complaint to recover the one-half (1/2) portion of Lot
399, they were very much in time to do so.
IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, the decision appealed from is hereby set aside. The petitioners
Ignacio Frias Chua, Dominador Chua and Remedios Chua are declared owners of 1/2 undivided
portion of Lot 399; and the Register of Deeds of Negros Occidental is hereby ordered to cancel.
Transfer Certificate of Title No. 31796 covering Lot No. 399 issued in the name of Consolacion de
la Torre and to issue a new Certificate of Title in the names of Consolacion de la Torre, 1/2
undivided portion; Ignacio Frias Chua, 1/4 undivided portion; and Dominador Chua and
Remedios Chua, 1/4 undivided portion, of said lot. Without pronouncement as to costs.

But the obligation of paying the Standard Oil Co. of New York the amount of P3,971.20 is imposed SO ORDERED.
upon Consolacion de la Torre and Juanito Frias Chua not personally by the deceased Jose Frias
Chua in his last will and testament but by an order of the court in the Testate Proceeding No.4816
dated January 15, 1931. As long as the transmission of the property to the heirs is free from any
condition imposed by the deceased himself and the property is given out of pure generosity, itg
is gratuitous. it does not matter if later the court orders one of the heirs, in this case Juanito Frias
Chua, to pay the Standare oil co. of New York the amount of P3,971.20. This does not change the
gratuitous nature of the transmission of the property to him. This being the case the lot in
question is subject to reserva troncal under Art, 891 of the New Civil Code.

It is contented that the distribution of the shares of the estate of Jose Frias Chua to the respondent
heirs or legatees was agreed upon by the heirs in their project of partition based on the last will
and testament of Jose Frias Chua. But petitioners claim that the supposed Last Will and
Testament of Jose Frias Chua was never probated. The fact that the will was not probated was
admitted in paragraph 6 of the respondents' answer. 7 There is nothing mentioned in the decision
of the trial court in Civil Case No. 7839 A which is the subject of the present appeal nor in the
order of January 15, 1931 of the trial court in the Testate Estate Proceeding No. 4816 nor in the
private respondent's brief, that the Last Will and Testament of Jose Frias Chua
has ever been probated. With the foregoing, it is easy to deduce that if the Last Will and Testament
has in fact been probated there would have been no need for the testamentary heirs to prepare
a project of partition among themselves. The very will itself could be made the basis for the
adjudication of the estate as in fact they did in their project of partition with Juanito Frias Chua
getting one-half of Lot 399 by inheritance as a sone of the deceased Jose Frias Chua by the latter's
second marriage.

According to the record, Juanito Frias Chua died on February 27, 1952 without any issue. After
his death his mother Consolation de la Torre succeeded to his one-half pro-indiviso share of Lot
399. This was, however, subject to the condition that the property was reservable in character
G. R. No. L-11960
Padura vs. Baldovino
REYES, J.B.L., J.:
Appeal on a pure question of law from an order of the Court of First Instance of Laguna in its
Special Proceedings No. 4551.
The facts are simple and undisputed. Agustin Padura contracted two marriages during his
lifetime. With his first wife, Gervacia Landig, he had one child whom they named Manuel Padura,
and with his second, Benita Garing; he had two children named Fortunato Padura and Candelaria
Padura.
Agustin Padura died on April 26, 1908, leaving a last will and testament, duly probated in Special
Proceedings No, 664 of the Court of First Instance of Laguna, wherein he bequeathed his
properties among his children, Manuel, Candelaria and Fortunato, and his surviving spouse,
Benita Garing. Under the probate proceedings, Fortunate was adjudicated four parcels of land
covered under Decree No. 25960 issued In Land Registration Case No. 86 G. L. R. O. No. 10818,
object of this appeal.
Fortunato Padura died unmarried on May 28, 1908, without having executed a will; and not
having any issue, the said parcels of land were inherited exclusively by her mother, Benita
Garing. She applied for and later was issued a Torrens Certificate of Title in her name, but subject
to the condition that the properties were reservable in favor of relatives within the third degree
belonging to the line from which said property came, in accordance with the applicable provision
of law, under a decree of the court dated August 25, 1916, in Land Registration Case No. G. L. R.
O. No. 10818.
On August 26, 1934, Candelaria Padura died leaving as her only heirs, her four legitimate
children, the appellants herein, Cristeta, Melania, Anicia and Pablo, all surnamed Baldovino, Six
years later, on October 6, 1940, Manuel Padura also died. Surviving him are his legitimate
children, Dionisia, Felisa, Flora, Gornelio, Francisco, Juana, and Severino, all surnamed Padura,
the appellees herein.
Upon the death of Benita Garing (the reservista), on October 15, 1952, appellants and appellees
took possession of the reservable properties. In a resolution, dated August 1, 1953, of the Court
of First Instance of Laguna in Special Proceedings No. 4551, the legitimate children of the
deceased Manuel Padura and Candelaria Baldovino were declared to be the rightful reservees,
and as such, entitled to the reservable properties (the original reserveess Candelaria Padura and
Manuel Padura, having predeceased the reservista). The instant petition, dated October 22,
1956, filed by appellants Baldovino seeks to have these properties partitioned, such that one-half
of the same be adjudicated to them, and the other half to the appellees, allegedly on the basis that
they inherit by right of representation from their respective parents, the original reservees. To
this petition, appellees filed their opposition, maintaining that they should all (the eleven
reservees) be deemed as inheriting in their own right, under which, they claim, each should have
an equal share.
Based on the foregoing finding of facts, the lower court rendered judgment declaring all the
reservees (without distinction) "co-owners, pro-indiviso, equal shares of the parcels of land"
subject matter of the suit.
The issue in this appeal may be formulated as follows: In a case of reserva troncal, where the
only reservatarios (reservees) surviving the reservista, and belonging to the line of origin, are
nephews of the descendant (prepositus), but some are nephews of the half blood and the others
are nephews of the whole blood, should the reserved properties be apportioned among them
equally, or should the nephews of the whole blood take a share twice as large as that of the
nephews of the half blood?
The appellants contend that notwithstanding the reservable character of the property under Art,
891 of the new Civil Code (Art. 811 of the Code of 1889) the reservatarios nephews of the whole
blood are entitled to a share twice as large as that of the others, in conformity with Arts, 1006,
1008 of the Civil Code of the Philippines (Arts. 949 and 951 of the Code of 1889) on intestate
succession.
"Art. 1006. Should brothers and sisters of the full blood survive together with brothers and
sisters of the half blood, the former shall be entitled to a share double that of the latter.(949)n
"Art. 1008. Children of brothers and sisters of the half blood shall succeed per capita or per
stripes, in accordance with the rules laid down for brothers and sisters of the full blood, (951)"
The case is one of first impression and has divided the Spanish commentators on the
subject. After mature reflection, we have concluded that the position of the appellants is
correct. The reserva troncal is a special rule designed primarily to assure the return of the
reservable property to the third degree relatives belonging to the line from which the property
originally came, and avoid its being dissipated into and by the relatives of the inheriting
ascendant (reservista). To this end, the Code provides:
"Art. 891. The ascendant who inherits from his descendant any property which the latter may
have acquired by gratuitous title from another ascendant, or a brother or sister, is obliged to
reserve such property as he may have acquired by operation of law for the benefit of relatives
who are within the third degree and who belong to the line from which said property came.
(811)"
It is well known that the reserva troncal had no direct precedent in the law of Castile. The
President of the Spanish Code Commission, D. Manuel Alonso Martinez, explained the motives
for the formulation of the reserva troncal in the Civil Code of 1889 in his book "El Codigo Civil en
sus relaciones con las Legislaciones Forales" (Madrid, 1884, Vol. 1, pp. 226-228, 233-235) in the
following words:
"La base cuarta, á más de estar en pugna con la legislacion española, es una desviacion del antiguo
derecho romano y del moderno derecho europeo, perfectamente conformes ambos con el
tradicional sistema de Castilla. En qué se fundó, pues, la Comision para semejante novedad? Que
razones pudieron moverla á establecer la sucesion lineal, separándose del cáuce secular?
"Lo diré en breves frases. Hay un case, no del todo raro, que subleva el sentimiento de cuantos
lo imaginan ó lo ven: el hijo mayor de un magnate sucede á su padre en la mitad Integra de
pingues mayorazgos, tocando á sus hermanos un lote modestisimo en la division de la herencia
paterna; aquel hijo se casa y fallece al poco tiempo dejando un tierno vástago; la viuda, todavia
jóven, contrae segundas bodas y tiene la desdicha de perder al hijo del primer matrimonio
heredando toda su fortuna con exclusion de la madre y los hermanos de su primer marido. No
hay para qué decir que, si hay descendientes del segundo matrimonio, á ellos se trasmite en su
dia la hereticia. Por donde resulta el irritante espectáculo de que los vástagos directos del
magnate viven en la estrechez y tal vez en la miseria, mientras gozan de su rico patrimonio
personas extrañas á su familia y que, por un órden natural, la son profundamente antipáticas.
Esta hipótesis se puede realizar y se realize, aunque por lo general en menor escala, entre
propietarios, banqueros é industriales. labradores y comerciantes, sin necesidad de
vinculaciones ni titulos nobiliarios.
"Pues bien, la mayoria de la Comision se preocupó vivamente de esto, considerando el principio
de familia como superior al del afecto presumible del difunto. A esta impresion obedecia la
propuesta del Sr. Garcia Goyena, para que á los ascendientes se les diera su legitima tan sólo en
usufructo: en idéntica razon se apoyaba el Sr. Franco para pedir con insistencia se declarase que,
si un ascendiente tenia hecha una donacion á su descendiente, bien fuese al contraer matrinionio
ó bien con cualquiera otro motivo, y muriese el donatario sin sucesion, volvieran los bienes
donados al donante, sin perjuicio de la legitima que pudiera corresponderle en su calidad de
ascendiente. La Comision no se atrevió a ir tan allá como estos dos Sres. Vocales; pero, para
eludir las consecuencias que á las veces produce el principio de la proximidad del parentesco y
que he puesto de relieve poco há, proclamó, no sin vacilar, la doctrina de la sucesion lineal."
(pp.226-227)
"Y este fué el temperamento que, por indicacion mia, adoptó la Comision Codificadora,
norabrando una Sub-comision que redactara las bases é que habia de sujetarse esta especie de
reversion de los bienes inmuebles al tronco de donde procedan, lo mismo en la sucesion
testamentaria que en la intestada, sin perjuicio del derecho sacratisimo de los padres al disfrute
de la herencia de sus hijos malogrados prematuramente.
"Dicha Subcomision, compuesta de los Sres. Durán y Bás y Franco como defensores del régimen
f oral, y de los Sres. Manresa y Garcia Goyena en representacion de la legislacion castellana,
sometieron á la deliberacion de la Comision Codificadora la proposicion siguiente:
'El ascendiente que heredare de su descendiente bienes que este hubiese adquirido por titulo
lucrativo de_ otro ascendiente ó de un hermano, se halla obligado á reservar los que hubiese
adquirido por ministerio de la ley en favor de los parientes del difunto que se hallaran
comprendidos dentro del tercer grado y que lo sean por la parte de donde proceden los bienes.'
"No voy á discutir ahora si esta fórmula es más ó ménos feliz, y si debe aprobarse tal cual está
redactada ó si há menester de enmienda ó adicion. Aplazo este examen para cuando trate de la
sucesion intestada, á la cual tiene mayor aplicacion. Por el momento me limito á reconocer.
primero: que con esta base desaparece el peligro de que bienes poseidos secularmente por una
familia pasen bruscamente y á titulo gratuito á manos extrañas por el azar de los enlaces y de
muertes prematuras; segundo: que sin negar que sea una novedad esta base del derecho de
Castllla, tiene en rigor en su abono la autoridad de los Códigos más niveladores y el ejemplo de
las naciones más democráticas de Europe, si no en la extension en que lo presenta la Comision
Codificadora, á lo ménos en el principio generador de la reforma." (pp.233-235)
The stated purpose o£ the reserva is accomplished once property has devolved to the specified
relatives of the line of origin. But from this time on, there is no further occasion for its
application. In the relations between one reservatario and another of the same degree, there is
no call for applying Art. 891 any longer; wherefore, the respective share of each in the
reversionary property should be governed by the ordinary rules of intestate succession. In this
spirit the jurisprudence of this Court and that of Spain has resolved that upon the death of the
ascendant reservista, the reservable property should pass, not to all the reservatorios as a class,
but only to those nearest in degree to the descendant (prepositus) , excluding
those reservatarios of more remote degree (Florentine vs. Florentine, 40 Phil. 489-490; T. S. 8
Nov. 1894; Dir. Gen. de los Registros, Resol. 20 March 1905). And within the third degree of
relationship from the descendant (prepositus), the right of representation operates in favor of
nephews (Florentino vs. Florentino, supra).
"Following the order prescribed by law in legitimate succession, when there are re1atives of the
descendant within the third degree, the right of the nearest relative, called reservatario, over the
property which the reservista (person holding it subject to reservation) should return to him,
excludes that of the one more remote. The right of representation cannot be alleged when the
one claiming same as a reservatario of the reservable property is not among the relatives within
the third degree belonging to the line from which such property came, inasmuch as the right
granted by the Civil Code in Article 811 is in the highest degree personal and for the exclusive
benefit of designated persons who are within the third degree of the person from whom the
reservable property came. Therefore, relatives of the fourth and the succeeding degrees can
never be considered as reservatarios, since the law does not recognize them as such.
In spite of what has been said relative to the right of representation on the part of one alleging
his right as reservatario who is not within the third degree of relationship, nevertheless there is
right of representation on the part of reservatarios who are within the third degree mentioned
by law, as in the case of nephews of the deceased person from whom the reservable property
came. x x x." (Florentino vs. Florentino, 40 Phil. 480, 489-490) (Emphasis supplied) (see also
Nieva and Alacala vs. Alcala and de Ocampo, 41 Phil. 915)
Proximity of degree and right of representation are basic principles of ordinary intestate
succession; so is the rule that whole blood brothers and nephews are entitled to a share double
that of brothers and nephews of half-blood. If in determining the rights of thereservatarios inter
se, proximity of degree and the right of representation of nephews are made to apply, the rule of
double share for immediate collaterals of the whole blood should be likewise operative.
In other words, the reserva troncal merely determines the group of relatives (reservatarios) to
whom the property should be returned; but within that group, the individual right to the
property should be decided by the applicable rules of ordinary intestate succession, since Art.
891 does not specify otherwise. This conclusion is strengthened by the circumstance that
the reserva being an exceptional case, its application should be limited to what is strictly needed
to accomplish the purpose of the law. As expressed by Manresa in his Commentaries (Vol. 6, 6th
Ed., p. 250):
"creándose un verdadero estado excepcipnal del derecho, no debe ampliarse, sino más bien
restringirse, el alcance del precepto, manteniendo la excepción mientras fuere necesaria y
estuviese realmente contenida en la disposicion, y aplicando las reglas generales y fundamentals
del Código en materia de sucesión, en aquellos extremos no resueltos de un raodo expreso, y que
quedan fuera de la propia esfera de accián de la reserva que se crea."
The restrictive interpretation is the more imperative in view of the new Civil Code's hostility to
successional reservas and reversions, as exemplified by the suppression of the reserve
viudal and the reversion legal of the Code of 1889 (Arts. 812 and 968-980).
There is a third point that deserves consideration. Even during the reservista's lifetime, the So Ordered.
reservatarios, who are the ultimate acquirers of the property, can already assert the right to
prevent the reservista from doing anything that might frustrate their reversionary right: and for
this purpose they can compel the annotation of their right in the Registry of Property even while
the reservista is alive (Ley Hipotecaria de Ultramar, Arts. 168, 199; Edroso vs. Sablan, 25 Phil.
295). This right is incompatible with the mere expectancy that corresponds to the natural heirs
of the reservista. It is likewise clear that the reservable property is no part of the estate of
the reservista, who may not dispose of them by will, so long as there are reservatarios existing
(Arroyo vs. Gerona, 58 Phil. 237). The latter, therefore, do not inherit from the reservist, but from
the descendant prepositus, of whom the reservatarios are the heirs mortis causa, subject to the
condition that they must survive the reservista. (Sanchez Roman, Vol. VI, Torao 2, p. 286;
Manresa, Commentaries, Vol. 6, 6th Ed., pp. 274, 310) Had the nephews of whole and half-blood
succeeded the prepositus directly, those of full-blood would undoubtedly receive a double share
compared to those of the half-blood (Arts. 1008 and 1006, jam cit.) Why then should the latter
receive equal shares simply because the transmission of the property was delayed by the
interregnum of the reserva? The decedent (causante) the heirs and their relationship being the
same, there is no cogent reason why the hereditary portions should vary.

It should be stated, in justice to the trial court, that its opinion is supported by distinguished
commentators of the Civil Code of 1889, among them Sanchez Román (Estudios, Vol. 65 Tomo 2,
p. 1008) and Mucius Scaevola (Código Civil, Vol 14, p. 342). The reason given by these authors is
that the reservatarios are called by law to take the reservable property because they belong to
the line of origin; and not because of their relationship. But the argument, if logically pursued,
would lead to the conclusion that the property should pass to any and all the reservatarios, as a
class, and in equal shares, regardless of lines and degrees. In truth, such is the thesis of Scaevola,
that later became known as the theory of reserva integral (14 Scaevola, Cod. Civ. p. 332 et
seq.). But, as we have seen, the Supreme Courts of Spain and of the Philippines have rejected that
view, and consider that the reservable property should be succeeded by the reservatario who is
nearest in degree, according to the basic rules of intestacy. The refutation of the trial court's
position is found in the following, passage of Manresa's Commentaries (Vol. 6, 7th Ed., p. 346):

"A esto se objeta que el derecho consignado en el articulo 811 es un derecho propio que nace de
la mera calidad de pariente; no un derecho que se adquiere por sucesión. Ciertamente, el derecho
se concede a los parientes lineales dentro del tercer grado; pero se les concede con motivo de la
muerte de un descendiente y en la sucesión de este. Ellos suceden por la procedencia especial de
los bienes después de ser éstos disfrutados por el ascendiente; pero suceden a titulo lucrativo y
por causa de muerte y ministerio de la ley, lo cual es dificil poderlo negar. Hasta podrlan
estimarse esos parientes legitimarios o herederos forzosos, como el mismo autor reconoce en
otro lugar de su obra. De modo que este argumento no es convincente."

All told, our considered opinion is that reason and policy favor keeping to a minimum the
alterations introduced by the reserva in the basic rules of succession mortis causa.

WHEREFORE, the appealed order of November 5, 1956 is reversed and set aside, and
the reservatarios who are nephews of the whole blood are declared entitled to a share twice as
large as that of the nephews of the half-blood. Let the records be remanded to the court below
for further proceedings in accordance with this decision.
G.R. No. L-28032 September 24, 1986
FRANCISCA TIOCO DE PAPA, MANUEL TIOCO, NICOLAS TIOCO and JANUARIO
PAPA, plaintiffs-appellees,
vs.
DALISAY TONGKO CAMACHO, PRIMO TONGKO and GODOFREDO CAMACHO, defendants-
appellants.
NARVASA, J.:
This case, which involves the application of Article 891 of the Civil Code on reserva troncal, was
submitted for judgment in the lower court by all the parties on the following "Stipulation of Facts
and Partial Compromise":
1. They stipulate that the defendant Dalisay D. Tongko-Camacho and the
plaintiffs, Francisco Tioco de Papa, Manuel Tioco and Nicolas Tioco, are
legitimate relatives, plaintiffs being said defendant's grandaunt and
granduncles.
2. They stipulate that plaintiffs and defendant Dalisay D. Tongo-Camacho have
as a common ancestor the late Balbino Tioco (who had a sister by the name of
Romana Tioco), father of plaintiffs and great grandfather of defendant. The
family relationship of the parties is as shown in the chart attached hereto as
Annex 'A' and made an integral part of this stipulation.
3. They stipulate that Romana Tioco during her lifetime gratuitously donated
four (4) parcels of land to her niece Toribia Tioco (legitimate sister of
plaintiffs), which parcels of land are presently covered by Transfer
Certificates of Title Nos. A-64165, 64166 and 64167 of the Registry of Deeds
of Manila, copies of which are attached to this stipulation as Annexes 'B', 'B-l',
and 'B-2'.
4. They stipulate that Toribia Tioco died intestate in l9l5, survived by her
husband, Eustacio Dizon, and their two legitimate children, Faustino Dizon
and Trinidad Dizon (mother of defendant Dalisay D, Tongko-Camacho) and
leaving the afore-mentioned four (4) parcels of land as the inheritance of her
said two children in equal pro-indiviso shares.
5. They stipulate that in 1928, Balbino Tioco died intestate, survived by his
legitimate children by his wife Marciana Felix (among them plaintiffs) and
legitimate grandchildren Faustino Dizon and Trinidad Dizon. In the partition
of his estate, three (3) parcels of land now covered by Transfer Certificates of
Title Nos. 16545 and 16554 of the Registry of Deeds of Manila, copies of which
are attached hereto as Annexes 'C' and 'C-l', were adjudicated as the
inheritance of the late Toribia Tioco, but as she had predeceased her father,
Balbino Tioco, the said three (3) parcels of land devolved upon her two
legitimate children Faustino Dizon and Trinidad Dizon in equal pro-indiviso
shares.
6. They stipulate that in 1937, Faustino Dizon died intestate, single and
without issue, leaving his one-half (1/2) pro-indiviso share in the seven (7)
parcels of land above-mentioned to his father, Eustacio Dizon, as his sole
intestate heir, who received the said property subject to a reserva troncal
which was subsequently annotated on the Transfer Certificates of Title
Annexes 'B', 'B-l', 'B-2', 'C' and 'C-l'.
7. They stipulate that in 1939 Trinidad Dizon-Tongko died intestate, and her
rights and interests in the parcels of land abovementioned were inherited by
her only legitimate child, defendant Dalisay D. Tongko-Camacho, subject to
the usufructuary right of her surviving husband, defendant Primo Tongko.
8. They stipulate that on June 14, 1965, Eustacio Dizon died intestate, survived
his only legitimate descendant, defendant Dalisay D. Tongko-Camacho.
9. The parties agree that defendant Dalisay D. Tongko-Camacho now owns
one-half (1/2) of all the seven (7) parcels of land abovementioned as her
inheritance from her mother, Trinidad Dizon-Tongko.
10. Defendant Dalisay D. Tongko-Camacho also claims, upon legal advice, the
other half of the said seven (7) parcels of land abovementioned by virtue of
the reserva troncal imposed thereon upon the death of Faustino Dizon and
under the laws on intestate succession; but the plaintiffs, also upon legal
advice, oppose her said claim because they claim three-fourths (3/4) of the
one-half pro-indiviso interest in said parcel of land, which interest was
inherited by Eustacio Dizon from Faustino Dizon, or three-eights (3/8) of the
said parcels of land, by virtue of their being also third degree relatives of
Faustino Dizon.
11. The parties hereby agree to submit for judicial determination in this case
the legal issue of whether defendant Dalisay D. Tongko-Camacho is entitled to
the whole of the seven (7) parcels of land in question, or whether the plaintiffs,
as third degree relatives of Faustino Dizon are reservatarios (together with
said defendant) of the one-half pro-indiviso share therein which was
inherited by Eustacio Dizon from his son Faustino Dizon, and entitled to three-
fourths (3/4) of said one-half pro-indiviso share, or three eights (3/8) of said
seven (7) parcels of land, and, therefore, to three-eights (3/8) of the rentals
collected and to be collected by defendant Dalisay P. Tongko Camacho from
the tenants of said parcels of land, minus the expenses and/or real estate taxes
corresponding to plaintiffs' share in the rentals.
12. In view of the fact that the parties are close blood relatives and have acted
upon legal advice in pursuing their respective claims, and in order to restore
and preserve harmony in their family relations, they hereby waive all their
claims against each other for damages (other than legal interest on plaintiffs'
sore in the rentals which this Honorable Court may deem proper to award),
 attorney's fees and expenses of litigation which shall be borne by the
respective parties. 1
On the basis thereof, the lower Court declared the plaintiffs Francisco Tioco, Manuel Tioco and
Nicolas Tioco, as well as the defendant Dalisay Tongko-Camacho, entitled, as reservatarios, to
one-half of the seven parcels of land in dispute, in equal proportions, rendering judgment as
follows:
... . Resolving, therefore, the legal question submitted by the parties, the court
holds that plaintiffs Francisca Tioco, Manuel Tioco and Nicolas Tioco are
entitled to three-fourths (3/4) of one-half (1/2) pro-indiviso shares or three-
eights (3/8) of the seven (7) parcels of land involved in this action.
Consequently, they are, likewise, entitled to three-eights (3/8) of the rentals
collected and to be collected by the defendant Dalisay D. Tioco-Camacho from
the tenants of the said parcels of land, minus the expenses and/or real estate
taxes corresponding to plaintiffs' share in the rentals.
IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING, and inasmuch as the parties expressly waived
all their claims against each other for damages including attorney's fees and
expenses of litigation other than the legal interests on plaintiffs' share in the
rentals, the court renders judgment adjudging the plaintiffs entitled to three-
eights (3/8) of the seven (7) parcels of land described in Transfer Certificate
of Title Nos. T-64165, T-64166, T-64167, T-16546 and T-16554 of the
Registry of Deeds of Manila. The defendant Dalisay D. Tioco-Camacho is
hereby ordered to make an accounting of all rents received by her on the
properties involved in this action for the purpose of determining the legal
interests which should be paid to the plaintiffs on their shares in the rentals
of the property in question.
SO ORDERED. 2
Not satisfied, the defendant appealed to this Court.
The issue raised is whether, as contended by the plaintiffs-appellees and ruled by the lower
Court, all relatives of thepraepositus within the third degree in the appropriate line succeed
without distinction to the reservable property upon the death of the reservista, as seems to be
implicit in Art. 891 of the Civil Code, which reads:
Art. 891. The ascendant who inherits from his descendant any property which
the latter may have acquired by gratuitous title from another ascendant, or a
brother or sister, is obliged to reserve such property as he may have acquired
by operation of law for the benefit of relatives who are within the third degree
and who belong to the line from which said property came. (811),
or, as asserted by the defendant-appellant, the rights of said relatives are subject to, and should
be determined by, the rules on intestate succession.
That question has already been answered in Padura vs. Baldovino, 3 where the reservatario was
survived by eleven nephews and nieces of the praepositus in the line of origin, four of whole blood
and seven of half blood, and the claim was also made that all eleven were entitled to the
reversionary property in equal shares. This Court, speaking through Mr. Justice J.B.L. Reyes,
declared the principles of intestacy to be controlling, and ruled that the nephews and nieces of
whole blood were each entitled to a share double that of each of the nephews and nieces of half
blood in accordance with Article 1006 of the Civil Code. Said the Court:
The issue in this appeal may be formulated as follows: In a case of reserva
troncal, where the only reservatarios (reservees) surviving the reservista, and
belonging to the fine of origin, are nephews of the descendant (prepositus),
but some are nephews of the half blood and the others are nephews of the
whole blood, should the reserved properties be apportioned among
them equally, or should the nephews of the whole blood take a share twice as
large as that of the nephews of the half blood?
xxx xxx xxx
The case is one of first impression and has divided the Spanish commentators
on the subject. After mature reflection, we have concluded that the position of
the appellants is correct. The reserva troncal is a special rule designed
primarily to assure the return of the reservable property to the third degree
relatives belonging to the line from which the property originally came, and
avoid its being dissipated into and by the relatives of the inheriting ascendant
(reservista).
xxx xxx xxx
The stated purpose of the reserva is accomplished once the property has
devolved to the specified relatives of the line of origin. But from this time on,
there is no further occasion for its application. In the relations between
one reservatario and another of the same degree there is no call for applying
Art. 891 any longer; wherefore, the respective share of each in the
reversionary property should be governed by the ordinary rules of intestate
succession. In this spirit the jurisprudence of this Court and that of Spain has
resolved that upon the death of the ascendant reservista, the reservable
property should pass, not to all the reservatarios as a class but only to those
nearest in degree to the descendant (prepositus), excluding
those reservatarios of more remote degree (Florentino vs. Florentino, 40 Phil.
489-490; T.S. 8 Nov. 1894; Dir. Gen. de los Registros, Resol. 20 March 1905).
And within the third degree of relationship from the descendant (prepositus),
the right of representation operates in favor of nephews (Florentino vs.
Florentino, supra).
Following the order prescribed by law in legitimate succession when there
are relatives of the descendant within the third degree, the right of the nearest
relative, called reservatarios over the property which the reservista (person
holding it subject to reservation) should return to him, excludes that of the
one more remote. The right of representation cannot be alleged when the one
claiming same as a reservatario of the reservable property is not among the
relatives within the third degree belonging to the line from which such
property came, inasmuch as the right granted by the Civil Code in Article 811
is in the highest degree personal and for the exclusive benefit of designated
persons who are within the third degree of the person from whom the
reservable property came. Therefore, relatives of the fourth and the
succeeding degrees can never be considered as reservatarios, since the law
does not recognize them as such.
In spite of what has been said relative to the right of representation on the
part of one alleging his right as reservatario who is not within the third degree
of relationship, nevertheless there is right of representation on the part of
reservatarios who are within the third degree mentioned by law, as in the case
of nephews of the deceased person from whom the reservable property came.
... . (Florentino vs. Florentino, 40 Phil. 480, 489-490) (Emphasis supplied) See
also Nieva and Alcala vs. Alcala and de Ocampo, 41 Phil. 915)
Proximity of degree and right of representation are basic principles of
ordinary intestate succession; so is the rule that whole blood brothers and
nephews are entitled to a share double that of brothers and nephews of half
blood. If in determining the rights of the reservatarios inter se, proximity of
degree and the right of representation of nephews are made to apply, the rule
of double share for immediate collaterals of the whole blood should be
likewise operative.
In other words, the reserva troncal merely determines the group of
relatives reservatarios to whom the property should be returned; but within
that group, the individual right to the property should be decided by the
applicable rules of ordinary intestate succession, since Art. 891 does not
specify otherwise. This conclusion is strengthened by the circumstance that
the reserva being an exceptional case, its application should be limited to what
is strictly needed to accomplish the purpose of the law. As expressed by
Manresa in his Commentaries (Vol. 6, 6th Ed., p. 250):
... creandose un verdadero estado excepcional del derecho, no debe ampliarse,
sino mas bien restringirse, el alcance del precepto, manteniendo la excepcion
mientras fuere necesaria y estuviese realmente contenida en la disposicion, y
aplicando las reglas generales y fundamentales del Codigo en materia de
sucesi6n, en aquehos extremes no resueltos de un modo expreso, y que
quedan fuera de la propia esfera de accion de la reserva que se crea.
The restrictive interpretation is the more imperative in view of the new Civil
Code's hostility to successional reservas and reversions, as exemplified by the
suppression of the reserva viudal and the reversion legal of the Code of 1889
(Art. 812 and 968-980).
Reversion of the reservable property being governed by the rules on intestate succession, the
plaintiffs-appellees must be held without any right thereto because, as aunt and uncles,
respectively, of Faustino Dizon (the praepositus), they are excluded from the succession by his
niece, the defendant-appellant, although they are related to him within the same degree as the
latter. To this effect is Abellana vs. Ferraris4 where Arts. 1001, 1004, 1005 and 1009 of the Civil
Code were cited and applied:
Nevertheless, the trial court was correct when it held that, in case of intestacy
nephews and nieces of the de cujus exclude all other collaterals (aunts and
uncles, first cousins, etc.) from the succession. This is readily apparent from
Articles 1001, 1004, 1005 and 1009 of the Civil Code of the Philippines, that
provide as follows:
Art. 1001. Should brothers and sisters or their children survive with the
widow or widower, the latter shall be entitle to one-half of the inheritance and
the brothers and sisters or their children to the other half.
Art. 1004. Should the only survivors be brothers and sisters of the full blood,
they shall inherit in equal shares.
Art. 1005. Should brothers and sisters survive together with nephews and
nieces who are the children of the decedent's brothers and sisters of the full
blood, the former shall inherit per capita, and the latter per stirpes.
Art. 1009. Should there be neither brothers nor sisters, nor children of
brothers and sisters, the other collateral relatives shall succeed to the estate.
Under the last article (1009), the absence of brothers, sisters, nephews and
nieces of the decedent is a precondition to the other collaterals (uncles,
cousins, etc.) being called to the succession. This was also and more clearly
the case under the Spanish Civil Code of 1889, that immediately preceded the
Civil Code now in force (R.A. 386). Thus, Articles 952 and 954 of the Code of
1889 prescribed as follows:
Art. 952. In the absence of brothers or sisters and of nephews or nieces,
children of the former, whether of the whole blood or not, the surviving
spouse, if not separated by a final decree of divorce shall succeed to the entire
estate of the deceased.
Art. 954. Should there be neither brothers nor sisters, nor children of brothers
or sisters, nor a surviving spouse, the other collateral relatives shall succeed
to the estate of deceased.
The latter shall succeed without distinction of lines or preference among them
by reason of the whole blood.
 It will be seen that under the preceding articles, brothers and sisters and
nephews and nieces inheritedab intestato ahead of the surviving spouse,
while other collaterals succeeded only after the widower or widow. The
present Civil Code of the Philippines merely placed the spouse on a par with
the nephews and nieces and brothers and sisters of the deceased, but without
altering the preferred position of the latter vis a vis the other collaterals.
Had the reversionary property passed directly from the praepositus, there is no doubt that the
plaintiffs-appellees would have been excluded by the defendant-appellant under the rules of
intestate succession. There is no reason why a different result should obtain simply because "the
transmission of the property was delayed by the interregnum of the reserva;" 6 i.e., the property
took a "detour" through an ascendant-thereby giving rise to the reservation before its
transmission to the reservatario.

xxx xxx xxx
We, therefore, hold, and so rule, that under our laws of succession, a
decedent's uncles and aunts may not succeed ab intestato so long as nephews
and nieces of the decedent survive and are willing and qualified to succeed. ...
This conclusion is fortified by the observation, also made in Padura, supra, that as to the
reservable property, thereservatarios do not inherit from the reservista, but from the
descendant praepositus:
Upon the stipulated facts, and by virtue of the rulings already cited, the defendant-appellant
Dalisay Tongko-Camacho is entitled to the entirety of the reversionary property to the exclusion
of the plaintiffs-appellees.
WHEREFORE, the appealed judgment of the lower Court is reversed and set aside and the
complaint is dismissed, with costs against the plaintiffs-appellants.
SO ORDERED.

... . It is likewise clear that the reservable property is no part of the estate of
the reservista, who may not dispose of it by will, as long as there
are reservatarios existing (Arroyo vs. Gerona, 58 Phil. 237). The latter,
therefore, do not inherit from the reservista, but from the
descendant prepositus, of whom the reservatarios are the heirs mortis causa,
subject to the condition that they must survive the reservista. (Sanchez
Roman, Vol. VI, Tomo 2, p. 286; Manresa, Commentaries, Vol. 6, 6th Ed., pp.
274, 310) ... .

To the same effect is Cano vs, Director of Lands 5, where it was ruled that intestacy proceedings
to determine the right of a reservatario are not necessary where the final decree of the land court
ordering issuance of title in the name of the reservista over property subject to reserva
troncal Identifies the reservatario and there are no other claimants to the latter's rights as such:

The contention that an intestacy proceeding is still necessary rests upon the
assumption that thereservatario win succeed in, or inherit, the reservable
property from the reservista. This is not true. The reservatario is not
the reservista's successor mortis causa nor is the reservable property part of
thereservista's estate; the reservatario receives the property as a conditional
heir of the descendant (prepositus), said property merely reverting to the line
of origin from which it had temporarily and accidentally strayed during
the reservista's lifetime. The authorities are all agreed that there
being reservatarios that survive the reservista, the matter must be deemed to
have enjoyed no more than a life interest in the reservable property.

It is a consequence of these principles that upon the death of

the reservista, the reservatario nearest to the prepositus (the appellee in this
case) becomes, automatically and by operation of law, the owner of the
reservable property. As already stated, that property is no part of the estate
of the reservista, and does not even answer for the debts of the latter. ... .
G.R. No. 6878 September 13, 1913
MARCELINA EDROSO, petitioner-appellant,
vs.
PABLO and BASILIO SABLAN, opponents-appellees.
Francisco Dominguez for appellant.
Crispin Oben for appellees.
ARELLANO, C.J.:
The subject matter of this appeal is the registration of certain property classified as required by
law to be reserved. Marcelina Edroso applied for registration and issuance of title to two parcels
of land situated in the municipality of Pagsanjan, Province of Laguna, one of 1 hectare 77 ares
and 63 centares, and the other 1 hectare 6 ares and 26 centares. Two applications were filed, one
for each parcel, but both were heard and decided in a single judgment.
Marcelina Edroso was married to Victoriano Sablan until his death on September 22, 1882. In
this marriage they had a son named Pedro, who was born on August 1, 1881, and who at his
father's death inherited the two said parcels. Pedro also died on July 15, 1902, unmarried and
without issue and by this decease the two parcels of land passed through inheritance to his
mother, Marcelina Edroso. Hence the hereditary title whereupon is based the application for
registration of her ownership.
Two legitimate brothers of Victoriano Sablan — that is, two uncles german of Pedro Sablan —
appeared in the case to oppose the registration, claiming one of two things: Either that the
registration be denied, "or that if granted to her the right reserved by law to the opponents be
recorded in the registration of each parcel." (B. of E., 11, 12.)
The Court of Land Registration denied the registration and the application appealed through a
bill of exceptions.
Registration was denied because the trial court held that the parcels of land in question partake
of the nature of property required by law to be reserved and that in such a case application could
only be presented jointly in the names of the mother and the said two uncles of Pedro Sablan.
The appellant impugns as erroneous the first idea advanced (second assignment of error), and
denies that the land which are the subject matter of the application are required by law to be
reserved — a contention we regard as indefensible.
Facts: (1) The applicant acquired said lands from her descendant Pedro Sablan by inheritance;
(2) Pedro Sablan had acquired them from his ascendant Victoriano Sablan, likewise by
inheritance; (3) Victoriano Sablan had likewise acquired them by inheritance from his
ascendants, Mariano Sablan and Maria Rita Fernandez, they having been adjudicated to him in
the partition of hereditary property had between him and his brothers. These are admitted facts.
A very definite conclusions of law is that the hereditary title is one without a valuable
consideration [gratuitous title], and it is so characterized in article 968 of the Civil Code, for he
who acquires by inheritance gives nothing in return for what he receives; and a very definite
conclusion of law also is that the uncles german are within the third degree of blood relationship.
The ascendant who inherits from his descendant property which the latter acquired
without a valuable consideration from another ascendant, or from a brother or sister,
is under obligation to reserve what he has acquired by operation of law for the relatives
who are within the third degree and belong to the line whence the property proceeded.
(Civil Code, art. 811.)
Marcelina Edroso, ascendant of Pedro Sablan, inherited from him these two parcels of land which
he had acquired without a valuable consideration — that is, by inheritance from another
ascendant, his father Victoriano. Having acquired them by operation of law, she is obligated to
relatives within the third degree and belong to the line of Mariano Sablan and Maria Rita
Fernandez, whence the lands proceeded. The trial court's ruling that they partake of the nature
property required by law to be reserved is therefore in accordance with the law.
But the appellant contends that it is not proven that the two parcels of land in question have been
acquired by operation of law, and that only property acquired without a valuable consideration,
which is by operation of law, is required by law to reserved.
The appellees justly argue that this defense was not alleged or discussed in first instance, but
only herein. Certainly, the allegation in first instance was merely that "Pedro Sablan acquired the
property in question in 1882, before the enforcement of the Civil Code, which establishes the
alleged right required by law to be reserved, of which the opponents speak; hence, prescription
of the right of action; and finally, opponents' renunciation of their right, admitting that it existed
and that they had it" (p. 49).
However that be, it is not superflous to say, although it may be unnecessary, that the applicant
inherited the two parcels of land from her son Pedro, who died "unmarried and without issue."
The trial court so held as a conclusion of fact, without any objection on the appellant's part. (B. of
E., 17, 20.) When Pedro Sablan died without issue, his mother became his heir by virtue of her
right to her son's legal portion under article 935 of the Civil Code:
In the absence of legitimate children and descendants of the deceased, his ascendants
shall from him, to the exclusion of collaterals.
The contrary could only have occurred if the heiress had demonstrated that any of these lands
had passed into her possession by free disposal in her son's will; but the case presents no
testamentary provision that demonstrate any transfer of property from the son to the mother,
not by operation of law, but by her son's wish. The legal presumption is that the transfer of the
two parcels of land was abintestate or by operation of law, and not by will or the wish of the
predecessor in interest. (Act No. 190, sec. 334, No. 26.) All the provision of article 811 of the Civil
Code have therefore been fully complied with.
If Pedro Sablan had instituted his mother in a will as the universal heiress of his property, all he
left at death would not be required by law to be reserved, but only what he would have perforce
left her as the legal portion of a legitimate ascendant.
The legal portion of the parents or ascendants is constituted by one-half of the
hereditary estate of the children and descendants. The latter may unrestrictedly
dispose of the other half, with the exception of what is established in article 836. (Civil
Code, art. 809.)
In such case only the half constituting the legal portion would be required by law to be reserved,
because it is what by operation of law could full to the mother from her son's inheritance; the
other half at free disposal would not have to be reserved. This is all that article 811 of the Civil
Code says.
No error has been incurred in holding that the two parcels of land which are the subject matter
of the application are required by law to be reserved, because the interested party has not proved
that either of them became her inheritance through the free disposal of her son.
Proof testate succession devolves upon the heir or heiress who alleges it. It must be admitted
that a half of Pedro Sablan's inheritance was acquired by his mother by operation of law. The law
provides that the other half is also presumed to be acquired by operation of law — that is, by
intestate succession. Otherwise, proof to offset this presumption must be presented by the
interested party, that is, that the other half was acquired by the man's wish and not by operation
of law.
Nor is the third assignments of error admissible — that the trial court failed to sustain the
renunciation of the right required by law to be reserved, which the applicant attributes to the
opponents. Such renunciation does not appear in the case. The appellant deduces it from the fact
that the appellees did not contradict the following statement of hers at the trial:
The day after my brother-in-law Pablo Sablan dies and was buried, his brother came to my house
and said that those rice lands were mine, because we had already talked about making delivery
of them. (p. 91).
The other brother alluded to is Basilio Sablan, as stated on page 92. From the fact that Basilio
Sablan said that the lands belong to the appellant and must be delivered to her it cannot be
deduced that he renounced the right required by law to be reserved in such lands by virtue of the
provisions of article 811 of the Civil Code, for they really belong to her and must be delivered to
her.
The fourth assignments of error set up the defense of prescription of the right of action. The
appellant alleges prescription of the opponent's right of action for requiring fulfillment of the
obligation they attribute to her recording in the property registry the right required by law to be
reserved, in accordance with the provisions of the Mortgage Law; and as such obligation is
created by law, it prescribed in the time fixed in No. 2 of section 43 of Act No. 190. She adds:
"Prescription of the right alleged to the reserved by force of law has not been invoked." (Eight
allegation.)
The appellant does not state in her brief what those provisions of the Mortgage Law are. Nor did
she do so in first instance, where she says only the following, which is quoted from the record: "I
do not refer to the prescription of the right required by law to be reserved in the property; I refer
to the prescription of the right of action of those who are entitled to the guaranty of that right for
seeking that guaranty, for those who are entitled to that right the Mortgage Law grants a period
of time for recording it in the property registry, if I remember correctly, ninety days, for seeking
entry in the registry; but as they have not exercised that right of action, such right of action for
seeking here that it be recorded has prescribed. The right of action for requiring that the property
be reserved has not prescribed, but the right of action for guaranteeing in the property registry
that this property is required by law to be reserved" (p. 69 of the record).
The appellees reply: It is true that their right of action has prescribed for requiring the applicant
to constitute the mortgage imposed by the Mortgage Law for guaranteeing the effectiveness of
the required by law to be reserved; but because that right of action has prescribed, that property
has not been divested of its character of property required by law to be reserved; that it has such
character by virtue of article 8112 of the Civil Code, which went into effect in the Philippine in
December, 1889, and not by virtue of the Mortgage Law, which only went into effect in the
country by law of July 14, 1893; that from December, 1889, to July, 1893, property which under
article 811 of the Civil Code acquired the character of property reserved by operation of law was
such independently of the Mortgage Law, which did not yet form part of the positive legislation
of the country; that although the Mortgage Law has been in effect in the country since July, 1893,
still it has in no way altered the force of article 811 of the Civil Code, but has operated to reinforce
the same merely by granting the right of action to the persons in whose favor the right is reserved
by operation of law to require of the person holding the property a guaranty in the form of a
mortgage to answer for the enforcement, in due time, of the right; that to lose the right of action
to the guaranty is not to lose the right itself; that the right reserved is the principal obligation and
the mortgage the accessory obligation, and loss of the accessory does not mean loss of the
principal. (Fifth and sixth allegations.)
The existence of the right required by law to be reserved in the two parcels of land in question
being indisputable, even though it be admitted that the right of action which the Mortgage Law
grants as a guaranty of final enforcement of such right has prescribed, the only thing to be
determined by this appeal is the question raised in the first assignment of error, that is, how said
two parcels of land can and ought to be registered, not in the property registry newly established
by the Mortgage Law, but in the registry newly organized by Act No. 496. But as the have slipped
into the allegations quoted some rather inexact ideas that further obscure such an intricate
subject as this of the rights required to be reserved in Spanish-Philippine law, a brief disgression
on the most essential points may not be out of place here.
The Mortgage Law of July 14, 1893, to which the appellees allude, is the amended one of the
colonies, not the first enforced in the colonies and consequently in the Philippines. The preamble
of said amended Mortgage Law states:
 The Mortgage Law in force in Spain for thirty years went into effect, with the
modifications necessary for its adaptation, in the Antilles on May 1, 1880, and in the
Philippines on December 1, 1889, thus commencing in those regions the renovation of
the law on real property, and consequently of agrarian credit.
The Civil Code went into effect in the Philippines in the same year, 1889, but on the eight day.
Two kinds of property required by law to be reserved are distinguished in the Civil Code, as set
forth in article 968 thereof, where it says:
Besides the reservation imposed by article 811, the widow or widower contracting a seconds
marriage shall be obliged to set apart for the children and descendants of the first marriage the
ownership of all the property he or she may have required from the deceased spouse by will, by
intestate succession, by gift, or other transfer without a valuable consideration."
The Mortgage Law of Spain and the first law that went into effect in the Philippines on December
1, 189, do not contain any provision that can be applied to the right reserved by article 811 of the
Civil Code, for such right is a creation of the Civil Code. In those laws appear merely the provisions
intended to guarantee the effectiveness of the right in favor of the children of the first marriage
when their father or mother contracts a second marriage. Nevertheless, the holding of the
supreme court of Spain, for the first time set forth in the decision on appeal of November 8, 1894,
has been reiterated:
That while the provisions of articles 977 and 978 of the Civil Code that tend to secure
the right required to be reserved in the property refer especially to the spouses who
contract second or later marriages, they do not thereby cease to be applicable to the
right establishes in article 811, because, aside from the legal reason, which is the same
in both cases, such must be the construction from the important and conclusive
circumstance that said provisions are set forth in the chapter that deals with
inheritances in common, either testate or intestate, and because article 968, which
heads the section that deals in general with property required by law to be reserved,
makes reference to the provisions in article 811; and it would consequently be
contradictory to the principle of the law and of the common nature of said provisions
not to hold them applicable to that right.
Thus it was again stated in a decision on appeal, December 30, 1897, that: "As the supreme court
has already declared, the guaranties that the Code fixes in article 977 and 978 for the rights
required by law to the reserved to which said articles refer, are applicable to the special right
dealt with in article 811, because the same principle exists and because of the general nature of
the provisions of the chapter in which they are found."
From this principle of jurisprudence it is inferred that if from December, 1889, to July, 1893, a
case had occurred of a right required to be reserved by article 811, the persons entitled to such
right would have been able to institute, against the ascendant who must make the reservation,
proceedings for the assurance and guaranty that article 977 and 978 grant to the children of a
first marriage against their father or mother who has married again. The proceedings for
assurance, under article 977; are: Inventory of the property subject to the right reserved,
annotation in the property registry of such right reserved in the real property and appraisal of
the personal property; and the guaranty, under article 978, is the assurance by mortgage, in the
case of realty, of the value of what is validly alienated.
But since the amended Mortgage Law went into effect by law of July 14, 1893, in the Philippines
this is not only a principle of jurisprudence which may be invoked for the applicability to the
right reserved in article 811 of the remedies of assurance and guaranty provided for the right
reserved in article 968, but there is a positive provision of said law, which is an advantage over
the law of Spain, to wit, article 199, which read thus:
The special mortgage for guaranteeing the right reserved by article 811 of the Civil Code
can only be required by the relatives in whose favor the property is to be reserved, if
they are of age; if minors, it will be require by the person who should legally represent
them. In either case the right of the persons in whose favor the property must be
reserved will be secured by the same requisites as set forth in the preceding article
(relative to the right reserved by article 968 of the Civil Code), applying to the
person obligated to reserve the right the provisions with respect to the father.
In article 168 of the same law the new subsection 2 is added in connection with article 199
quoted, so that said article 168 reads as thus:
Legal mortgage is established:
1. . . .
2. In favor of the relatives to whom article 811 of the Civil Code refers, for the property
required to be reserved, upon the property of the person obliged to reserve it.
This being admitted, and admitted also that both the litigating parties agree that the period of
ninety days fixed for the right of action to the guaranty, that is, to require the mortgage that
guarantees the effectiveness of the right required by law to be reserved, has prescribed, it is
necessary to lay down a principle in this matter. Now it should by noted that such action has not
prescribed, because the period of ninety days fixed by the Mortgage Law is not for the exercise
of the right of action of the persons entitled to the right reserved, but for the fulfillment of the
obligation of the person who must make the reservation.
Article 191 of the reads thus: "If ninety days pass without the father's instituting in court the
proceeding to which the foregoing article refers, the relatives themselves may demand
fulfillment, etc., . . . applying, according to said article 199, to the person obligated to reserve the
right the provisions with respect to the father."
Article 203 of the regulation for the application of the Mortgage Law says: "In the case of article
199 of the law the proceedings to which article 190 thereof refers will be instituted within the
ninety days succeeding the date of the date of the acceptation of the inheritance by the person
obligated to reserve the property; after this period has elapsed, the interested parties may require
the institution of such proceedings, if they are of age; and in any other case, their legal
representatives."
Thus it clearly appears that the lapse of the ninety days is not the expiration by prescription of
the period for the right must be reserved, but really the commencement thereof, enables them to
exercise it at any time, since no limits is set in the law. So, if the annotation of the right required
by law to be reserved in the two parcels of land in question must be made in the property registry
of the Mortgage Law, the persons entitled to it may now institute proceedings to that end, and an
allegation of prescription against the exercise of such right of action cannot be sustained.
Since the applicant confesses that she does not allege prescription of the right of action
for requiring that the property be reserved, for she explicitly so stated at the trial, and as the case
presents no necessity for the proceedings that should be instituted in accordance with the
provisions of the Mortgage Law, this prescription of the right of action cannot take place, because
such right of action does not exist with reference to instituting proceedings for annotation in the
registry of Act No. 496 of the right to the property required by law to be reserved. It is sufficient,
as was done in the present case, to intervene in the registration proceedings with the claim set
up by the two opponents for recording therein the right reserved in either parcel of land.
Now comes the main point in the appeal. The trial court denied the registration because of this
finding set forth in its decision:
Absolute title to the two parcels of land undoubtedly belongs to the applicant and the
two uncles of the deceased Pedro Sablan, and the application cannot be made except in
the name of all of them in common. (B. of E., p. 20.)
It must be remembered that absolute title consists of the rights to use, enjoy, dispose of, and
recover. The person who has in himself all these rights has the absolute or complete ownership
of the thing; otherwise, the person who has the right to use and enjoy will have the usufruct, and
the person who has the rights of disposal and recovery the direct title. The person who by law,
act, or contract is granted the right of usufruct has the first two rights or using an enjoying, and
then he is said not to have the fee simple — that is, the rights of disposal and recovery, which
pertain to another who, after the usufruct expires, will come into full ownership.
The question set up in the first assignment of error of the appellant's brief is this:
What are the rights in the property of the person who holds it subject to the reservation
of article 811 of the Civil Code?
There are not lacking writers who say, only those of a usufructuary, the ultimate title belonging
to the person in whose favor the reservation is made. If that were so, the person holding the
property could not apply for registration of title, but the person in whose favor it must be
reserved, with the former's consent. This opinion does not seem to be admissible, although it
appears to be supported by decisions of the supreme court of Spain of May 21, 1861, and June
18, 1880, prior to the Civil Code, and of June 22, 1895, somewhat subsequent to the enforcement
thereof.
Another writer says: "This opinion only looks at two salient points — the usufruct and the fee
simple; the remaining features of the arrangement are not perceived, but become obscure in the
presence of that deceptive emphasis which only brings out two things: that the person holding
the property will enjoy it and that he must keep what he enjoys for other persons." (Manresa, VII,
189.)
In another place he says: "We do not believe that the third opinion can now be maintained —
that is, that the surviving spouse (the person obliged by article 968 to make the reservation) can
be regarded as a mere usufructuary and the descendants immediately as the owner; such theory
has no serious foundation in the Code." (Ibid., 238.)
The ascendants who inherits from a descendants, whether by the latter's wish or by operation of
law, requires the inheritance by virtue of a title perfectly transferring absolute ownership. All the
attributes of the right of ownership belong to him exclusively — use, enjoyment, disposal and
recovery. This absolute ownership, which is inherent in the hereditary title, is not altered in the
least, if there be no relatives within the third degree in the line whence the property proceeds or
they die before the ascendant heir who is the possessor and absolute owner of the property. If
there should be relatives within the third degree who belong to the line whence the property
proceeded, then a limitation to that absolute ownership would arise. The nature and scope of this
limitation must be determined with exactness in order not to vitiate rights that the law wishes to
be effective. The opinion which makes this limitation consist in reducing the ascendant heir to
the condition in of a mere usufructuary, depriving him of the right of disposal and recovery, does
not seem to have any support in the law, as it does not have, according to the opinion that he has
been expressed in speaking of the rights of the father or mother who has married again. There is
a marked difference between the case where a man's wish institutes two persons as his heirs,
one as usufructuary and the other as owner of his property, and the case of the ascendant in
article 811 or of the father or mother in article 968. In the first case, there is not the slightest
doubt that the title to the hereditary property resides in the hereditary owner and he can dispose
of and recover it, while the usufructuary can in no way perform any act of disposal of the
hereditary property (except that he may dispose of the right of usufruct in accordance with the
provisions of article 480 of the Civil Code), or any act of recovery thereof except the limited one
in the form prescribed in article 486 of the Code itself, because he totally lacks the fee simple. But
the ascendants who holds the property required by article 811 to be reserved, and the father of
mother required by article 986 to reserve the right, can dispose of the property they might itself,
the former from his descendant and the latter from his of her child in first marriage, and recover
it from anyone who may unjustly detain it, while the persons in whose favor the right is required
to be reserved in either case cannot perform any act whatsoever of disposal or of recovery.
Article 975 states explicitly that the father or mother required by article 9687 to reserve the right
may dispose of the property itself:
Alienation of the property required by law to be reserved which may be made by the
surviving spouse after contracting a second marriage shall be valid only if at his or her
death no legitimate children or descendants of the first marriage survive, without
prejudice to the provisions of the Mortgage of Law.
It thus appears that the alienation is valid, although not altogether effective, but under a
condition subsequent, to wit: "If at his or her death no legitimate children or descendants of the
first marriage survive."
If the title did not reside in the person holding the property to be reserved, his alienation thereof
would necessarily be null and void, as executed without a right to do so and without a right which
he could transmit to the acquirer. The law says that the alienation subsists (to subject is to
continue to exist) "without prejudice to the provisions of the Mortgage Law." Article 109 of this
Law says:
The possessor of property subject to conditions subsequent that are still pending may
mortgage or alienate it, provided always that he preserve the right of the parties
interested in said conditions by expressly reserving that right in the registration.
In such case, the child or legitimate descendants of the first marriage in whose favor the right is
reserved cannot impugn the validity of the alienation so long as the condition subsequent is
pending, that is, so long as the remarried spouse who must reserve the right is alive, because it
might easily happen that the person who must reserve the right should outlive all the person in
whose favor the right is reserved and then there would be no reason for the condition subsequent
that they survive him, and, the object of the law having disappeared, the right required to be
reserved would disappear, and the alienation would not only be valid but also in very way
absolutely effective. Consequently, the alienation is valid when the right required by law to be
reserved to the children is respected; while the effects of the alienation depend upon a condition,
because it will or will not become definite, it will continue to exist or cease to exist, according to
circumstances. This is what the law establishes with reference to the reservation of article 968,
wherein the legislator expressly directs that the surviving spouse who contracts a second
marriage shall reserve to the children or descendants of the first marriage ownership. Article 811
says nothing more than that the ascendants must make the reservation.
Manresa, with his recognized ability, summarizes the subject under the heading, "Rights and
obligations during the existence of the right required by law to be reserved," in these words:
During the whole period between the constitution in legal form of the right required by law to be
reserved and the extinction thereof, the relatives within the third degree, after the right that in
their turn may pertain to them has been assured, have only an expectation, and therefore they do
not even have the capacity to transmit that expectation to their heirs.
The ascendant is in the first place a usufructuary who should use and enjoy the things according
to their nature, in the manner and form already set forth in commenting upon the article of the
Code referring to use and usufruct.
But since in addition to being the usufructuary he is, even though conditionally, the owner in fee
simple of the property, he can dispose of it in the manner provided in article 974 and 976 of the
same Code. Doubt arose also on this point, but the Direccion General of the registries, in an
opinion of June 25, 1892, declared that articles 974 and 975, which are applicable by analogy, for
they refer to property reserved by law, reveal in the clearest manner the attitude of the legislator
on this subject, and the relatives with the third degree ought not to be more privileged in the
right reserved in article 811 than the children in the right reserved by article 975, chiefly for the
reason that the right required to be reserved carries with it a condition subsequent, and the
property subject to those conditions can validly be alienated in accordance with article 109 of
the Mortgage Law, such alienation to continue, pending fulfillment of the condition." (Civil Code,
VI, 270.)
Another commentator corroborates the foregoing in every way. He says:
The ascendants acquires that property with a condition subsequent, to wit, whether or
not there exists at the time of his death relatives within the third degree of the
descendants from whom they inherit in the line whence the property proceeds. If such
relatives exist, they acquire ownership of the property at the death of the ascendants.
If they do not exist, the ascendants can freely dispose thereof. If this is true, since the
possessor of property subject to conditions subsequent can alienate and encumber it,
the ascendants may alienate the property required by law to be reserved, but he will
alienate what he has and nothing more because no one can give what does not belong
to him, and the acquirer will therefore receive a limited and revocable title. The relatives
within the third degree will in their turn have an expectation to the property while the
ascendant lives, an expectation that cannot be transmitted to their heirs, unless these
are also within the third degree. After the person who is required by law to reserve the
right has died, the relatives may rescind the alienation of the realty required by law to
be reserved and they will complete ownership, in fee simple, because the condition and
the usufruct have been terminated by the death of the usufructuary. (Morell, Estudios
sobre bienes reservable, 304, 305.)
The conclusion is that the person required by article 811 to reserve the right has, beyond any
doubt at all, the rights of use and usufruct. He has, moreover, for the reasons set forth, the legal
title and dominion, although under a condition subsequent. Clearly he has, under an express
provision of the law, the right to dispose of the property reserved, and to dispose of is to alienate,
although under a condition. He has the right to recover it, because he is the one who possesses
or should possess it and have title to it, although a limited and revocable one. In a word, the legal
title and dominion, even though under a condition, reside in him while he lives. After the right
required by law to be reserved has been assured, he can do anything that a genuine owner can
do.
On the other hand, the relatives within the third degree in whose favor of the right is reserved
cannot dispose of the property, first because it is no way, either actually, constructively or
formally, in their possession; and, moreover, because they have no title of ownership or of the
fee simple which they can transmit to another, on the hypothesis that only when the person who
must reserve the right should die before them will they acquire it, thus creating a fee simple, and
only then will they take their place in the succession of the descendants of whom they are
relatives within the third degree, that it to say, a second contingent place in said legitimate
succession in the fashion of aspirants to a possible future legacy. If any of the persons in whose
favor the right is reserved should, after their rights has been assured in the registry, dare to
dispose of even nothing more than the fee simple of the property to be reserved his act would be
null and void, for, as was definitely decided in the decision on appeal of December 30, 1897, it is
impossible to determine the part "that might pertain therein to the relative at the time he
exercised the right, because in view of the nature and scope of the right required by law to be
reserved the extent of his right cannot be foreseen, for it may disappear by his dying before the
person required to reserve it, just as may even become absolute should that person die."
Careful consideration of the matter forces the conclusion that no act of disposal inter vivos of the
person required by law to reserve the right can be impugned by him in whose favor it is reserved,
because such person has all, absolutely all, the rights inherent in ownership, except that the legal
title is burdened with a condition that the third party acquirer may ascertain from the registry in
order to know that he is acquiring a title subject to a condition subsequent. In conclusion, it seems
to us that only an act of disposal mortis causa in favor of persons other than relatives within the
third degree of the descendants from whom he got the property to be reserved must be
prohibited to him, because this alone has been the object of the law: "To prevent persons outside
a family from securing, by some special accident of life, property that would otherwise have
remained therein." (Decision of December 30, 1897.)
Conventional redemption shall take place when the vendor reserves to himself the right to
recover the thing sold, with the obligation to comply with article 1518, and whatever more may
have been agreed upon," that is, if he recovers the thing sold by repaying the vendee the price of
the sale and other expenses. Notwithstanding this condition subsequent, it is a point not at all
doubtful now that the vendee may register his title in the same way as the owner of a thing
mortgaged — that is to say, the latter with the consent of his creditor and the former with the
consent of the vendor. He may alienate the thing bought when the acquirer knows by well from
the title entered in the registry that he acquires a title revocable after a fixed period, a thing much
more certain and to be expected than the purely contingent expectation of the person in whose
favor is reserved a right to inherit some day what another has inherited. The purpose of the law
would be defeated in not applying to the person who must make the reservation the provision
therein relative to the vendee under pacto de retracto, since the argument in his favor is the more
power and conclusive; ubi eadem ratio, eadem legis dispositivo.

Practically, even in the opinion of those who reduce the person reserving the right to the Therefore, we reverse the judgment appealed from, and in lieu thereof decide and declare that
condition of a mere usufructuary, the person in whose favor it must be reserved cannot attack the applicant is entitled to register in her own name the two parcels of land which are the subject
the alienation that may be absolutely made of the property the law requires to be reserved, in matter of the applicants, recording in the registration the right required by article 811 to be
the present case, that which the appellant has made of the two parcels of land in question to a reserved to either or both of the opponents, Pablo Sablan and Basilio Sablan, should they survive
third party, because the conditional alienation that is permitted her is equivalent to an alienation her; without special findings as to costs.
of the usufruct, which is authorized by article 480 of the Civil Code, and, practically, use and
enjoyment of the property required by law to be reserved are all that the person who must
reserve it has during his lifetime, and in alienating the usufruct all the usefulness of the thing
would be transmitted in an incontrovertible manner. The question as to whether or not she
transmits the fee simple is purely academic, sine re, for it is not real, actual positive, as is the case
of the institution of two heirs, one a usufructuary and the other the owner, by the express wish
of the predecessor in interest.

If the person whom article 811 requires to reserve the right has all the rights inherent in
ownership, he can use, enjoy, dispose of and recover it; and if, in addition to usufructuary, he is
in fact and in law the real owner and can alienate it, although under a condition, the whole
question is reduced to the following terms:

Cannot the heir of the property required by law to reserved, merely because a condition
subsequent is annexed to his right of disposal, himself alone register the ownership of the
property he has inherited, when the persons in whose favor the reservation must be made degree
thereto, provided that the right reserved to them in the two parcels of land be recorded, as the
law provides?

It is well known that the vendee under pacto de retracto acquires all the rights of the vendor:

The vendee substitutes the vendor in all his rights and actions. (Civil Code, art. 1511.)

If the vendor can register his title, the vendee can also register this same title after he has once
acquired it. This title, however, in its attribute of being disposable, has a condition subsequent
annexed — that the alienation the purchaser may make will be terminated, if the vendor should
exercise the right granted him by article 1507, which says:
G.R. No. L-10701 January 16, 1959
MARIA CANO, applicant-appellee,
vs.
DIRECTOR OF LANDS, EUSTAQUIA GUERRERO, ET AL., oppositors-appellants.
JOSE FERNANDEZ, ET AL., oppositors-appellants.
Ramon C. Fernandez for appellants.
Jose B. Dealca for appellee.
REYES, J.B.L., J.:
In an amended decision dated October 9, 1951, issued in Land Registration Case No. 12, G.L.R.O.
Rec. No. 2835, the Court of First Instance of Sorsogon decreed the registration of Lots Nos. 1798
and 1799 of the Juban (Sorsogon) Cadastre, under the following terms and conditions:
In view of the foregoing, and it appearing that the notices have been duly published and
posted as required by law, and that the title of the applicant to the above-mentioned
two parcels of land is registrable in law, it is hereby adjudged and decreed, and with
reaffirmation of the order of general default, that the two parcels of land described in
plan SWO-24152, known as Lots Nos. 1798 and 1799 of the Cadastral Survey of Juban,
with their improvements, be registered in the name of Maria Cano, Filipina, 71 years of
age, widow and resident of Juban, province of Sorsogon, with the understanding that
Lot No. 1799 shall be subject to the right of reservation in favor of Eustaquia Guerrero
pursuant to Article 891 of the Civil code. After this decision shall have become final for
lack of appeal therefrom within the 30-day period from its promulgation, let the
corresponding decree issue.
So ordered. (Rec. App. pp. 18-19)
The decision having become final, the decree and the Certificate of Title (No. 0-20) were issued
in the name of Maria Cano, subject to reserva troncal in favor of Eustaquia Guerrero. In October
1955, counsel for the reserve (reservatorio) Guerrero filed a motion with the Cadastral Court,
alleging the death of the original registered owner and reservista, Maria Cano, on September 8,
1955, and praying that the original Certificate of Title be ordered cancelled and a new one issued
in favor of movant Eustaquia Guerrero; and that the Sheriff be ordered to place her in possession
of the property. The motion was opposed by Jose and Teotimo Fernandez, sons of
the reservistaMaria Cano, who contended that the application and operation of the reserva
troncal should be ventilated in an ordinary contentious proceeding, and that the Registration
Court did not have jurisdiction to grant the motion.
In view of the recorded reserva in favor of the appellee, as expressly noted in the final decree of
registration, the lower court granted the petition for the issuance of a new certificate, for the
reason that the death of the reservistavested the ownership of the property in the petitioner as
the sole reservatorio troncal.
The oppositors, heirs of the reservista Maria Cano, duly appealed from the order, insisting that
the ownership of the reservatorio can not be decreed in a mere proceeding under sec. 112 of Act
496, but requires a judicial administration proceedings, wherein the rights of appellee, as
the reservatorio entitled to the reservable property, are to be declared. In this connection,
appellants argue that the reversion in favor of the reservatorio requires the declaration of the
existence of the following facts:
(1) The property was received by a descendant by gratuitous title from an ascendant or
from a brother or sister;
(2) Said descendant dies without issue;
(3) The property is inherited by another ascendant by operation of law; and
(4) The existence of relatives within the third degree belonging the line from which said
property came. (Appellants' Brief, p. 8)
We find the appeal untenable. The requisites enumerated by appellants have already been
declared to exist by the decree of registration wherein the rights of the appellee as reservatario
troncal were expressly recognized:
From the above-quoted agreed stipulation of facts, it is evident that Lot No. 1799 was
acquired by the Appellant Maria Cano by inheritance from her deceased daughter,
Lourdes Guerrero who, in turn, inherited the same from her father Evaristo Guerrero
and, hence, falls squarely under the provisions of Article 891 of the Civil Code; and that
each and everyone of the private oppositors are within the third degree of consaguinity
of the decedent Evaristo Guerrero, and who belonging to the same line from which the
property came.
It appears however, from the agreed stipulation of facts that with the exception of
Eustaquia Guerrero, who is the only living daughter of the decedent Evaristo Guerrero,
by his former marriage, all the other oppositors are grandchildren of the said Evaristo
Guerrero by his former marriages. Eustaquia Guerrero, being the nearest of kin,
excludes all the other private oppositors, whose decree of relationship to the decedent
is remoter (Article 962, Civil Code; Director of Lands vs. Aguas, 62 Phil., 279). (Rec. App.
pp. 16-17)
This decree having become final, all persons (appellees included) are bared thereby from
contesting the existence of the constituent elements of the reserva. The only requisites for the
passing of the title from the reservista to the appellee are: (1) the death of the reservista; and (2)
the fact that the reservatario has survived the reservista. Both facts are admitted, and their
existence is nowhere questioned.
The contention that an intestacy proceeding is still necessary rests upon the assumption that
the reservatario will succeed in, or inherit, the reservable property from the reservista. This is not
true. The reservatario is not the reservista's successor mortis causa nor is the reservable property
part of the reservista's estate; the reservatarioreceives the property as a conditional heir of the
descendant ( prepositus), said property merely reverting to the line of origin from which it had
temporarily and accidentally strayed during the reservista's lifetime. The authorities are all
agreed that there being reservatarios that survive the reservista, the latter must be deemed to
have enjoined no more than a life interest in the reservable property.

It is a consequence of these principles that upon the death of the reservista,

the reservatario nearest to theprepositus (the appellee in this case) becomes, automatically and
by operation of law, the owner of the reservable property. As already stated, that property is no
part of the estate of the reservista, and does not even answer for the debts of the latter. Hence, its
acquisition by the reservatario may be entered in the property records without necessity of
estate proceedings, since the basic requisites therefor appear of record. It is equally well settled
that the reservable property can not be transmitted by a reservista to her or his own
successors mortis causa,(like appellants herein) so long as a reservatario within the third degree
from the prepositus and belonging to the line whence the property came, is in existence when
the reservista dies.

Of course, where the registration decree merely specifies the reservable character of the
property, without determining the identity of the reservatario (as in the case of Director of
Lands vs. Aguas, 63 Phil., 279) or where several reservatarios dispute the property among
themselves, further proceedings would be unavoidable. But this is not the case. The rights of
the reservataria Eustaquia Guerrero have been expressly recognized, and it is nowhere claimed
that there are other reservatarios of equal or nearer degree. It is thus apparent that the heirs of
the reservista are merely endeavoring to prolong their enjoyment of the reservable property to
the detriment of the party lawfully entitled thereto.

We find no error in the order appealed from and therefore, the same is affirmed with costs
against appellants in both instances. So ordered.
G.R. No. L-34395 May 19, 1981
BEATRIZ L. GONZALES, petitioner,
vs.
COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF MANILA (BRANCH V), BENITO F. LEGARDA, ROSARIO L.
VALDEZ, ALEJANDRO LEGARDA, TERESA LEGARDA, JOSE LEGARDA, BENITO LEGARDA Y
FERNANDEZ, CARMEN LEGARDA Y FERNANDEZ, FILOMENA LEGARDA Y HERNANDEZ,
CARMEN LEGARDA Y HERNANDEZ, ALEJANDRO LEGARDA Y HERNANDEZ, RAMON
LEGARDA Y HERNANDEZ, FILOMENA LEGARDA Y LOBREGAT, JAIME LEGARDA Y
LOBREGAT, CELSO LEGARDA Y LOBREGAT, ALEJANDRO LEGARDA Y LOBREGAT, MA.
TERESA LEGARDA Y LOBREGAT, MA. ANTONIA LEGARDA Y LOBREGAT, JOSE LEGARDA Y
LOBREGAT, ROSARIO LEGARDA Y LOBREGAT, BENITO LEGARDA Y LOBREGAT, EDUARDO
LEGARDA Y LOBREGAT, TRINIDAD F. LEGARDA, and the ESTATE OF DONA FILOMENA
ROCES DE LEGARDA, respondents.
AQUINO, J.:
Beatriz Legarda Gonzales appealed from the decision of the Court of First Instance of Manila,
dismissing her complaint for partition, accounting, reconveyance and damages and holding, as
not subject to reserve troncal, the properties which her mother Filomena Races inherited in 1943
from Filomena Legarda (Civil Case No. 73335). The facts are as follows:
Benito Legarda y De la Paz, the son of Benito Legarda y Tuason, died [Manila] on June 17, 1933.
He was survived by his widow, Filomena Races, and their seven children: four daughters named
Beatriz, Rosario, Teresa and Filomena and three sons named Benito, Alejandro and Jose.
On July 12, 1939, the real properties left by Benito Legarda y Tuason were partitioned in three
equal portions by his daughters, Consuelo and Rita, and the heirs of his deceased son Benito
Legarda y De la Paz who were represented by Benito F. Legarda.
Filomena Legarda y Races died intestate and without issue on March 19, 1943. Her sole heiress
was her mother, Filomena Races Vda. de Legarda.
Mrs. Legarda executed on May 12, 1947 an affidavit adjudicating extrajudicially to herself the
properties which she inherited from her deceased daughter, Filomena Legarda. The said
properties consist of the following: 1äwphï1.ñët
(a) Savings deposit in the National City Bank of New York with a credit balance
of P3,699.63.
(b) 1,429 shares of the Benguet Consolidated Mining Company and a 1/7
interest in certain shares of the San Miguel Brewery, Tuason & Legarda, Ltd.,
Philippine Guaranty Company, Insular Life Assurance Company and
the Manila Times.
(c) 1/7 of the properties described in TCT Nos. 80226, 80237 to 80243 (7
titles), 80260, 80261 and 57512 of the Manila registry of deeds.
1/21st of the properties covered by TCT Nos. 48164, 84714, 48201, 48202,
48205, 48203, 48206, 48160 and 48192 of the Manila registry of deeds;
1/21st of the property described in TCT No. 4475 of the registry of deeds of
Rizal, now Quezon City; 1/14th of the property described in TCT No. 966 of
the registry of deeds of Baguio;
1/7th of the lot and improvements at 127 Aviles described in TCT No. 41862
of the Manila registry of deeds; 1/7th of the lots and improvements at 181 San
Rafael describe in TCT Nos. 50495 and 48161 of the Manila registry of deeds;
1/7th of the property described in TCT No. 48163 of the Manila registry of
deeds (Streets);
l/21st of the properties described in TCT Nos. 48199 and 57551 of the Manila
registry of deeds (Streets and Estero):
2/21st of the property described in TCT No. 13458 of tile registry of deeds of
T0ayabas.
These are the properties in litigation in this case. As a result of the affidavit of adjudication,
Filomena Races succeeded her deceased daughter Filomena Legarda as co-owner of the
properties held proindiviso by her other six children.
Mrs. Legarda on March 6, 1953 executed two handwritten Identical documents wherein she
disposed of the properties, which she inherited from her daughter, in favor of the children of her
sons, Benito, Alejandro and Jose (sixteen grandchildren in all). The document reads: 1äwphï1.ñët
A mis hijos :
Dispongo que se reparta a todos mis nietos hijos de Ben, Mandu y Pepito, los
bienes que he heredado de mi difunta hija Filomena y tambien los acciones de
la Destileria La Rosario' recientemente comprada a los hermanos Values
Legarda.
De los bienes de mi hija Filomena se deducira un tote de terreno que yo he
0donada a las Hijas de Jesus, en Guipit
La case No. 181 San Rafael, la cede a mi hijo Mandu solo la casa; proque ella
esta construida sobre terreno de los hermanos Legarda Races. 1äwphï1.ñët
(Sgd.) FILOMENA
ROCES LEGARDA
6 Marzo 1953
During the period from July, 1958 to February, 1959 Mrs. Legarda and her six surviving children
partitioned the properties consisting of the one-third share in the estate of Benito Legarda y
Tuason which the children inherited in representation of their father, Benito Legarda y De la Paz.
Mrs. Legarda died on September 22, 1967. Her will was admitted to probate as a holographic will
in the order dated July 16, 1968 of the Court of First Instance of Manila in Special Proceeding No.
70878, Testate Estate of Filomena Races Vda. de Legarda. The decree of probate was affirmed by
the Court of Appeals in Legarda vs. Gonzales, CA-G.R. No. 43480-R, July 30,1976.
In the testate proceeding, Beatriz Legarda Gonzales, a daughter of the testatrix, filed on May 20,
1968 a motion to exclude from the inventory of her mother's estate the properties which she
inherited from her deceased daughter, Filomena, on the ground that said properties
are reservable properties which should be inherited by Filomena Legarda's three sisters and
three brothers and not by the children of Benito, Alejandro and Jose, all surnamed Legarda. That
motion was opposed by the administrator, Benito F. Legarda.
Without awaiting the resolution on that motion, Mrs. Gonzales filed on June 20, 1968 an ordinary
civil action against her brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces and her mother's estate for the
purpose of securing a declaration that the said properties are reservable properties which Mrs.
Legarda could not bequeath in her holographic will to her grandchildren to the exclusion of her
three daughters and her three sons (See Paz vs. Madrigal, 100 Phil. 1085).
As already stated, the lower court dismissed the action of Mrs. Gonzales. ln this appeal under
Republic Act No. 5440 she contends in her six assignments of error that the lower court erred in
not regarding the properties in question as reservable properties under article 891 of the Civil
Code.
On the other hand, defendants-appellees in their six counter-assignments of error contend that
the lower court erred in not holding that Mrs. Legarda acquired the estate of her daughter
Filomena] Legarda in exchange for her conjugal and hereditary shares in the estate of her
husband Benito Legarda y De la Paz and in not holding that Mrs. Gonzales waived her right to the
reservable properties and that her claim is barred by estoppel, laches and prescription.
The preliminary issue raised by the private respondents as to the timeliness of Mrs. Gonzales'
petition for review is a closed matter. This Court in its resolution of December 16, 1971 denied
respondents' motion to dismiss and gave due course to the petition for review.
In an appeal under Republic Act No. 5440 only legal issues can be raised under undisputed facts.
Since on the basis of the stipulated facts the lower court resolved only the issue of whether the
properties in question are subject to reserva troncal that is the only legal issue to be resolved in
this appeal.
The other issues raised by the defendants-appellees, particularly those involving factual matters,
cannot be resolved in this appeal. As the trial court did not pass upon those issues, there is no
ruling which can be reviewed by this Court.
The question is whether the disputed properties are reservable properties under article 891 of
the Civil Code, formerly article 811, and whether Filomena Races Vda. de Legarda could dispose
of them in his will in favor of her grandchildren to the exclusion of her six children.
Did Mrs. Legarda have the right to convey mortis causa what she inherited from her daughter
Filomena to the reservees within the third degree and to bypass the reservees in the second
degree or should that inheritance automatically go to the reservees in the second degree, the six
children of Mrs. Legarda?
As will hereinafter be shown that is not a novel issue or a question of first impression. lt was
resolved in Florentino vs. Florentino, 40 Phil. 480. Before discussing the applicability to this case
of the doctrine in the Florentino case and other pertinent rulings, it may be useful to make a brief
discourse on the nature of reserve troncal, also called lineal, familiar, extraordinaria o semi-
troncal.
Much time, effort and energy were spent by the parties in their five briefs in descanting on the
nature of reserve troncal which together with the reserva viudal and reversion legal, was
abolished by the Code Commission to prevent the decedent's estate from being entailed, to
eliminate the uncertainty in ownership caused by the reservation (which uncertainty impedes
the improvement of the reservable property) and to discourage the confinement of property
within a certain family for generations which situation allegedly leads to economic oligarchy, and
is incompatible with the socialization of ownership.
The Code Commission regarded the reservas as remnants of feudalism which fomented agrarian
unrest. Moreover, the reserves, insofar as they penalize legitimate relationship, is considered
unjust and inequitable.
However, the lawmaking body, not agreeing entirely with the Code Commission, restored
the reserve troncal, a legal institution which, according to Manresa and Castan Tobenas has
provoked questions and doubts that are difficult to resolve.
Reserva troncal is provided for in article 811 of the Spanish Civil Code, now article 891, which
reads: 1äwphï1.ñët
ART. 811. El ascendiente que heredare de su descendiente bienes que este
hubiese adquirido por titulo lucrative de otro ascendiente, o de un hermano,
se halla obligado a reservas los que hubiere adquirido por ministerio de la ley
en favor de los parientes que eaten dentro del tercer grade y pertenezcan a la
linea de donde los bienes proceden
ART. 891. The ascendant who inherits from his descendant any property
which the latter may have acquired by gratuitous title from another
ascendant, or a brother or sister, is obliged to reserve such property as he may
have acquired by operation of law for the benefit of relatives who are within
the third degree and who belong to the line from which said property came.
In reserve troncal (1) a descendant inherited or acquired by gratuitous title property from an
ascendant or from a brother or sister; (2) the same property is inherited by another ascendant
or is acquired by him by operation of law from the said descendant, and (3) the said ascendant
should reserve the said property for the benefit of relatives who are within the third degree from
the deceased descendant (prepositus) and who belong to the line from which the said property
came.
So, three transmissions are involved: (I) a first transmission by lucrative title (inheritance or
donation) from an ascendant or brother or sister to the deceased descendant; (2) a posterior
transmission, by operation of law (intestate succession or legitime) from the deceased
descendant (causante de la reserve) in favor of another ascendant, the reservor or reservista,
which two transmissions precede the reservation, and (3) a third transmissions of the same
property (in consequence of the reservation) from the reservor to the reservees (reservatarios)
or the relatives within the third degree from the deceased descendant belonging to the line of the
first ascendant, brother or sister of the deceased descendant (6 Castan Tobenas Derecho Civil,
Part l, 1960, 6th Ed., pp. 198-9).
If there are only two transmissions there is no reserve. Thus, where one Bonifacia Lacerna died
and her properties were inherited by her son, Juan Marbebe, upon the death of Juan, those lands
should be inherited by his half-sister, to the exclusion of his maternal first cousins. The said lands
are not reservable property within the meaning of article 811 (Lacerna vs. Vda. de Corcino, l l l
Phil. 872).
The persons involved in reserve troncal are (1) the ascendant or brother or sister from whom the
property was received by the descendant by lucrative or gratuitous title, (2) the descendant
or prepositus (prepositus) who received the property, (3) the reservor (reservista) the other
ascendant who obtained the property from the (prepositus) by operation of law and (4) the
reserves (reservatario) who is within the third degree from the prepositus and who belongs to
the (line o tronco) from which the property came and for whom the property should be reserved
by the reservor.
The reservees may be half-brothers and sisters (Rodriguez vs. Rodriguez, 101 Phil. 1098; Chua
vs. Court of First Instance of Negros Occidental, L-29901, August 31, 1977, 78 SCRA 412). Fourth
degree relatives are not included (Jardin vs. Villamayor, 72 Phil. 392).
The rationale of reserve troncal is to avoid "el peligro de que bienes poseidos secularmente por
una familia pasen bruscamente a titulo gratuito a manos extrañas por el azar de los enlaces y
muertes prematuras or impeder que, por un azar de la vide personas extranas a una familia
puedan adquirir bienes que sin aquel hubieran quedado en ella (6 Castan Tobenas Derecho Civil,
Part l, 6th Ed., 1980, p. 203; Padura vs. Baldovino, 104 Phil. 1065).
An illustration of reserve troncal is found in Edroso vs. Sablan, 25 Phil. 295. ln that case, Pedro
Sablan inherited two parcels of land from his father Victorians. Pedro died in 1902, single and
without issue. His mother, Marcelina Edroso, inherited from him the two parcels of land.
It was held that the land was reservable property in the hands of Marcelina. The reservees were
Pablo Sablan and Basilio Sablan, the paternal uncles of Pedro Sablan, the prepositus. Marcelina
could register the land under the Torrens system in her name but the fact that the land was
reservable property in favor of her two brothers-in-law, should they survive her, should be noted
in the title.
In another case, it appears that Maria Aglibot died intestate in 1906. Her one-half share of a parcel
of conjugal land was inherited by her daughter, Juliana Mañalac. When Juliana died intestate in
1920, said one-half share was inherited by her father, Anacleto Mañalac who owned the other
one-half portion.
Anacleto died intestate in 1942, survived by his second wife and their six children. lt was held
that the said one-half portion was reservable property in the hands of Anacleto Mañalac and,
upon his death, should be inherited by Leona Aglibot and Evarista Aglibot, sisters of Maria and
materna aunts of Juliana Mañalac, who belonged to the line from which said one-half portion
came (Aglibot vs. Mañalac 114 Phil. 964).
Other illustrations of reserva troncal are found in Florentino vs Florentino, 40 Phil. 480; Nieva
and Alcala vs. Alcala and Deocampo, 41 Phil. 915; Maghirang and Gutierrez vs. Balcita 46 Phil.
551; Lunsod vs. Ortega, 46 Phil. 664; Dizon vs. Galang, 48 Phil. 601; Riosa vs. Rocha, 48 Phil.
737; Centeno vs. Centeno 52 Phil. 322; Velayo Bernardo vs. Siojo, 58 Phil. 89; Director of Lands vs.
Aguas, 63 Phil. 279; Fallorfina vs. Abille, CA 39 O.G. 1784.
The person from whom the degree should be reckoned is the descendant, or the one at the end
of the line from which the property came and upon whom the property last revolved by descent.
He is called the prepositus(Cabardo vs. Villanueva. 44 Phil. 186, 190).
In the Cabardo case, one Cornelia Abordo inherited property from her mother, Basilia Cabardo.
When Cornelia died, her estate passed to her father, Lorenzo Abordo. ln his hands, the property
was reservable property. Upon the death of Lorenzo, the person entitled to the property was
Rosa Cabardo, a maternal aunt of Cornelia, who was her nearest relative within the third degree.
First cousins of the prepositus are in the fourth degree and are not reservees. They cannot even
represent their parents because representation is confined to relatives within the third degree
(Florentino vs. Florentino, 40 Phil. 480).
Within the third degree, the nearest relatives exclude the more remote subject to the rule of
representation. But the representative should be within the third degree from
the prepositus (Padura vs. Baldovino, 104 Phil. 1065).
Reserva troncal contemplates legitimate relationship. illegitimate relationship and relationship
by affinity are excluded.
Gratuitous title or titulo lucrativo refers to a transmission wherein the recipient gives nothing in
return such as donacion and succession (Cabardo vs. Villanueva, 44 Phil. 186, 189-190, citing 6
Manresa, Codigo Civil, 7th Ed., 195 l, p. 360).
The reserva creates two resolutory conditions, namely, (1) the death of the ascendant obliged to
reserve and (2) the survival, at the time of his death, of relatives within the third degree belonging
to the line from which the property came
(Sienes vs. E Esparcia l l l Phil. 349, 353).
The reservor has the legal title and dominion to the reservable property but subject to the
resolutory condition that such title is extinguished if the reservor predeceased the reservee. The
reservor is a usufructuary of the reservable property. He may alienate it subject to the
reservation. The transferee gets the revocable and conditional ownership of the reservor. The
transferee's rights are revoked upon the survival of the reservees at the time of the death of the
reservor but become indefeasible when the reservees predecease the reservor. (Sienes vs.
Esparcia, 111 Phil. 349, 353; Edroso vs. Sablan, 25 Phil. 295; Lunsod vs. Ortega, 46 Phil. 664;
Florentino vs. Florentino, 40 Phil. 480: Director of Lands vs. Aguas, 63 Phil. 279.)
The reservor's title has been compared with that of the vendee a retro in a pacta de retro sale or
to a fideicomiso conditional.
The reservor's alienation of the reservable property is subject to a resolutory condition, meaning
that if at the time of the reservor's death, there are reservees, the transferee of the property
should deliver it to the reservees. lf there are no reservees at the time of the reservor's death, the
transferee's title would become absolute. (Lunsod vs. Ortega, 46 Phil. 664; Gueco vs. Lacson, 118
Phil. 944; Mono vs. Nequia 93 Phil. 120).
On the other hand, the reserves has only an inchoate, expectant or contingent right. His expectant
right would disappear if he predeceased the reservor. lt would become absolute should the
reservor predecease the reserves.
The reserves cannot impugn any conveyance made by the reservor but he can require that the
reservable character of the property be recognized by the purchaser (Riosa vs. Rocha 48 Phil.
737; Edroso vs. Sablan, 25 Phil. 295, 312-3; Gueco vs. Lacson, 118 Phil. 944).
There is a holding that the renunciation of the reservee's right to the reservable property is illegal
for being a contract regarding future inheritance (Velayo Bernardo vs. Siojo, 58 Phil. 89, 96).
And there is a dictum that the reservee's right is a real right which he may alienate and dispose
of conditionally. The condition is that the alienation shall transfer ownership to the vendee only
if and when the reserves survives the reservor (Sienes vs. Esparcia, 111 Phil. 349,
353). 1äwphï1.ñët
The reservatario receives the property as a conditional heir of the descendant
(prepositus) said property merely reverting to the line of origin from which it
had temporarily and accidentally stayed during the reservista's lifetime. The
authorities are all agreed that there being reservatarios that survive the
reservists, the latter must be deemed to have enjoyed no more than a than
interest in the reservable property. (J. J. B. L. Reyes in Cane vs. Director of
Lands, 105 Phil. l5.)
Even during the reservista's lifetime, the reservatarios, who are the ultimate
acquirers of the property, can already assert the right to prevent
the reservista from doing anything that might frustrate their reversionary
right, and, for this purpose, they can compel the annotation of their right in
the registry of property even while the (reservista) is alive (Ley Hipotecaria
de Ultramar, Arts. 168, 199; Edroso vs. Sablan, 25 Phil. 295).
This right is incompatible with the mere expectancy that corresponds to the
natural heirs of the reservista lt is likewise clear that the reservable property
is no part of the estate of the reservista who may not dispose of them (it) by
will, so long as there are reservatarios existing (Arroyo vs. Gerona, 58 Phil.
226, 237).
The latter, therefore, do not inherit from the reservista but from the
descendant (prepositus) of whom the reservatarios are the heirs mortis causa,
subject to the condition that they must survive the reservista. (Sanchez
Roman, Vol. VI Tomo 2, p. 286; Manresa, Commentaries, Vol. 6, 6th Ed., pp.
274, 310, cited by J. J.B.L. Reyes in Padura vs. Baldovino, L-11960, December
27, 1958, 104 Phil. 1065).
Hence, upon the reservista's death, the reservatario nearest to the prepositus becomes,
"automatically and by operation of law, the owner of the reservable property." (Cane vs. Director
of Lands, 105 Phil. l5.)
In the instant case, the properties in question were indubitably reservable properties in the
hands of Mrs. Legarda. Undoubtedly, she was a reservor. The reservation became a certainty
when at the time of her death the reservees or relatives within the third degree of
the prepositus Filomena Legarda were living or they survived Mrs. Legarda.
So, the ultimate issue in this case is whether Mrs. Legarda, as reservor, could convey the
reservable properties by will or mortis causa to the reservees within the third degree (her sixteen
grandchildren) to the exclusion of the reservees in the second degree, her three daughters and
three sons. As indicated at the outset, that issue is already res judicata or cosa juzgada.
We hold that Mrs. Legarda could not convey in her holographic will to her sixteen grandchildren
the reservable properties which she had inherited from her daughter Filomena because the
reservable properties did not form part of her estate (Cabardo vs. Villanueva, 44 Phil. 186, 191).
The reservor cannot make a disposition mortis causa of the reservable properties as long as the
reservees survived the reservor.
As repeatedly held in the Cano and Padura cases, the reservees inherit the reservable properties
from the prepositus, not from the reservor.
Article 891 clearly indicates that the reservable properties should be inherited by all the nearest
relatives within the third degree from the prepositus who in this case are the six children of Mrs.
Legarda. She could not select the reservees to whom the reservable property should be given and
deprive the other reservees of their share therein.
To allow the reservor in this case to make a testamentary disposition of the reservable properties
in favor of the reservees in the third degree and, consequently, to ignore the reservees in
the second degree would be a glaring violation of article 891. That testamentary disposition
cannot be allowed.
We have stated earlier that this case is governed by the doctrine of Florentino vs. Florentino, 40
Phil. 480, a similar case, where it was ruled: 1äwphï1.ñët
Reservable property left, through a will or otherwise, by the death of
ascendant (reservista) together with his own property in favor of another of
his descendants as forced heir, forms no part of the latter's lawful inheritance
nor of the legitime, for the reason that, as said property continued to be
reservable, the heir receiving the same as an inheritance from his ascendant
has the strict obligation of its delivery to the relatives, within the third degree,
of the predecessor in interest (prepositus), without prejudicing the right of the
heir to an aliquot part of the property, if he has at the same time the right of
a reservatario (reserves).
ln the Florentino case, it appears that Apolonio Florentino II and his second wife Severina Faz de
Leon begot two children, Mercedes and Apolonio III. These two inherited properties from their
father. Upon Apolonio III death in 1891, his properties were inherited by his mother, Severina,
who died in 1908. ln her will, she instituted her daughter Mercedes as heiress to all her
properties, including those coming from her deceased husband through their son, Apolonio III.
The surviving children, begotten by Apolonio II with his first wife Antonia Faz de Leon and the
descendants of the deceased children of his first marriage, sued Mercedes Florentino for the
recovery of their share in the reservable properties, which Severina de Leon had inherited from
Apolonio III which the latter had inherited from his father Apolonio II and which Severina willed
to her daughter Mercedes.
Plaintiff's theory was that the said properties, as reservable properties, could not be disposed of
in Severina's will in favor of Mercedes only. That theory was sustained by this Court.
It was held that the said properties, being reservable properties, did not form part of Severina's
estate and could not be inherited from her by her daughter Mercedes alone.
As there were seven reservees, Mercedes was entitled, as a reserves, to one-seventh of the
properties. The other six sevenths portions were adjudicated to the other six reservees.
Under the rule of stare decisis et non quieta movere, we are bound to follow in this case the
doctrine of the Florentino case. That doctrine means that as long as during the reservor's lifetime
and upon his death there are relatives within the third degree of the prepositus regardless of
whether those reservees are common descendants of the reservor and the ascendant from whom
the property came, the property retains its reservable character. The property should go to the
nearest reservees. The reservor cannot, by means of his will, choose the reserves to whom the
reservable property should be awarded.
The alleged opinion of Sanchez Roman that there is no reserva troncal when the only relatives
within the third degree are the common descendants of the predeceased ascendant and the
ascendant who would be obliged to reserve is irrelevant and sans binding force in the light of the
ruling in the Florentino case.
It is contended by the appellees herein that the properties in question are not reservable
properties because only relatives within the third degree from the paternal line have survived
and that when Mrs. Legarda willed the said properties to her sixteen grandchildren, who are
third-degree relatives of Filomena Legarda and who belong to the paternal line, the reason for
the reserva troncal has been satisfied: "to prevent persons outside a family from securing, by
some special accident of life, property that would otherwise have remained therein".
That same contention was advanced in the Florentino case where the reservor willed the
reservable properties to her daughter, a full-blood sister of the prepositus and ignored the other
six reservors, the relatives of the half-blood of the prepositus.
In rejecting that contention, this Court held that the reservable property bequeathed by the
reservor to her daughter does not form part of the reservor's estate nor of the daughter's estate
but should be given to all the seven reservees or nearest relatives of the prepositus within the
third degree.
This Court noted that, while it is true that by giving the reservable property to only one reserves
it did not pass into the hands of strangers, nevertheless, it is likewise true that the heiress of the
reservor was only one of the reservees and there is no reason founded upon law and justice why the
other reservees should be deprived of their shares in the reservable property (pp. 894-5).
Applying that doctrine to this case, it results that Mrs. Legarda could not dispose of in her will
the properties in question even if the disposition is in favor of the relatives within the third
degree from Filomena Legarda. The said properties, by operation of Article 891, should go to Mrs.
Legarda's six children as reservees within the second degree from Filomena Legarda.
It should be repeated that the reservees do not inherit from the reservor but from the reservor
but from the prepositus, of whom the reservees are the heirs mortis causa subject to the condition
that they must survive the reservor (Padura vs. Baldovino, L-11960, December 27, 1958, 104
Phil. 1065).
The trial court said that the disputed properties lost their reservable character due to the non-
existence of third-degree relatives of Filomena Legarda at the time of the death of the reservor,
Mrs. Legarda, belonging to the Legarda family, "except third-degree relatives who pertain to
both" the Legarda and Races lines.
That holding is erroneous. The reservation could have been extinguished only by the absence of
reservees at the time of Mrs. Legarda's death. Since at the time of her death, there were (and still
are) reservees belonging to the second and third degrees, the disputed properties did not lose
their reservable character. The disposition of the said properties should be made in accordance
with article 891 or the rule on reserva troncal and not in accordance with the reservor's
holographic will. The said properties did not form part of Mrs. Legarda's estate. (Cane vs. Director
of Lands, 105 Phil. l, 4).

WHEREFORE, the lower court's decision is reversed and set aside. lt is hereby adjudged that the
properties inherited by Filomena Roces Vda. de Legarda from her daughter Filomena Legarda,
with all the fruits and accessions thereof, are reservable properties which belong to Beatriz,
Rosario, Teresa, Benito, Alejandro and Jose, all surnamed Legarda y Roces, as reservees. The
shares of Rosario L. Valdes and Benito F. Legarda, who died in 1969 and 1973, respectively,
should pertain to their respective heirs. Costs against the private respondents.

SO ORDERED.
G.R. No. L-14856 November 15, 1919
ENCARNACION FLORENTINO, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants,
vs.
MERCEDES FLORENTINO, ET AL., defendants-appellees.
TORRES, J.:
On January 17, 1918, counsel for Encarnacion (together with her husband Simeon Serrano), Gabriel,
Magdalena, Ramon, Miguel, Victorino, and Antonino of the surname Florentino; for Miguel Florentino,
guardian ad litem of the minor Rosario Florentino; for Eugenio Singson, the father and guardian ad
litem of Emilia, Jesus, Lourdes, Caridad, and Dolores of the surname Singson y Florentino; and for
Eugenio Singson, guardian of the minors Jose and Asuncion Florentino, filed a complaint in the Court
of First Instance of Ilocos Sur, against Mercedes Florentino and her husband, alleging as follows:
That Apolonio Isabelo Florentino II married the first time Antonia Faz de Leon; that during the
marriage he begot nine children called, Jose, Juan, Maria, Encarnacion, Isabel, Espirita, Gabriel, Pedro,
and Magdalena of the surname Florentino y de Leon; that on becoming a widower he married the
second time Severina Faz de Leon with whom he had two children, Mercedes and Apolonio III of the
surname Florentino y de Leon; that Apolonio Isabelo Florentino II died on February 13, 1890; that he
was survived by his second wife Severina Faz de Leon and the ten children first above mentioned; that
his eleventh son, Apolonio III, was born on the following 4th of March 1890.
That of the deceased Apolonio Isabelo's aforementioned eleven children, Juan, Maria and Isabel died
single, without leaving any ascendants or descendants; that Ramon, Miguel, Victorino, Antonio, and
Rosario are the legitimate children of the deceased Jose Florentino who was one of the children of the
deceased Apolonio Isabelo; that Emilia, Jesus, Lourdes, Caridad, and Dolores are the legitimate children
of Espirita Florentino, now deceased, and her husband Eugenio Singson; that Jose and Asuncion are
the children of Pedro Florentino, another son of the deceased Apolonio Isabelo Florentino.
That on January 17 and February 13, 1890, Apolonio Isabelo Florentino executed a will before the
notary public of Ilocos Sur, instituting as his universal heirs his aforementioned ten children, the
posthumos Apolonio III and his widow Severina Faz de Leon; that he declared, in one of the paragraphs
of said will, all his property should be divided among all of his children of both marriages.
That, in the partition of the said testator's estate, there was given to Apolonio Florentino III, his
posthumos son, the property marked with the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F in the complaint, a gold rosary,
pieces of gold, of silver and of table service, livestock, palay, some personal property and other objects
mentioned in the complaint.
That Apolonio Florentino III, the posthumos son of the second marriage, died in 1891; that his mother,
Severina Faz de Leon, succeeded to all his property described in the complaint; that the widow,
Severina Faz de Leon died on November 18, 1908, leaving a will instituting as her universal heiress her
only living daughter, Mercedes Florentino; that, as such heir, said daughter took possession of all the
property left at the death of her mother, Severina Faz de Leon; that among same is included the
property, described in the complaint, which the said Severina Faz de Leon inherited from her deceased
son, the posthumos Apolonio, as reservable property; that, as a reservist, the heir of the said Mercedes
Florentino deceased had been gathering for herself alone the fruits of lands described in the complaint;
that each and every one of the parties mentioned in said complaint is entitled to one-seventh of the
fruits of the reservable property described therein, either by direct participation or by representation,
in the manner mentioned in paragraph 9 of the complaint.
That several times the plaintiffs have, in an amicable manner, asked the defendants to deliver their
corresponding part of the reservable property; that without any justifiable motive the defendants have
refused and do refuse to deliver said property or to pay for its value; that for nine years Mercedes
Florentino has been receiving, as rent for the lands mentioned, 360 bundles of palay at fifty pesos per
bundle and 90 bundles of corn at four pesos per bundle; that thereby the plaintiffs have suffered
damages in the sum of fifteen thousand four hundred and twenty-eight pesos and fifty-eight centavos,
in addition to three hundred and eight pesos and fifty-eight centavos for the value of the fruits not
gathered, of one thousand pesos (P1,000) for the unjustifiable retention of the aforementioned
reservable property and for the expenses of this suit. Wherefore they pray it be declared that all the
foregoing property is reservable property; that the plaintiffs had and do have a right to the same, in
the quantity and proportion mentioned in the aforementioned paragraph 9 of the complaint; that the
defendants Mercedes Florentino and her husband be ordered to deliver to the plaintiffs their share of
the property in question, of the palay and of the corn above mentioned, or their value; and that they be
condemned to pay the plaintiffs the sum of one thousand pesos (P1,000) together with the costs of this
instance.
To the preceding complaint counsel for the defendants demurred, alleging that the cause of action is
based on the obligation of the widow Severina Faz de Leon to reserve the property she inherited from
her deceased son Apolonio Florentino y de Leon who, in turn, inherited same from his father Apolonio
Isabelo Florentino; that, there being no allegation to the contrary, it is to be presumed that the widow
Severina Faz de Leon did not remarry after the death of this husband nor have any natural child; that
the right claimed by the plaintiffs is not that mentioned in article 968 and the following articles, but
that established in article 811 of the Civil Code; that the object of the provisions of the aforementioned
articles is to avoid the transfer of said reservable property to those extraneous to the family of the
owner thereof; that if the property inherited by the widow Severina Faz de Leon from her deceased
son Apolonio Florentino y Faz de Leon (property which originated from his father and her husband)
has all passed into the hands of the defendant, Mercedes Florentino y Encarnacion, a daughter of the
common ancestor's second marriage (said Apolonio Isabelo Florentino with the deceased Severina Faz
de Leon) it is evident that the property left at the death of the posthumos son Apolonio Florentino y
Faz de Leon did not pass after the death of his mother Severina, his legitimate heirs as an ascendant,
into the hands of strangers; that said property having been inherited by Mercedes Florentino y
Encarnacion from her mother (Severina), article 811 of the Civil Code is absolutely inapplicable to the
present case because, when the defendant Mercedes, by operation law, entered into and succeeded to,
the possession, of the property lawfully inherited from her mother Severina Faz de Leon, said property
had, while in the possession of her mother, lost the character of reservable property — there being a
legitimate daughter of Severina Faz de Leon with the right to succeed her in all her rights, property
and actions; that the restraints of the law whereby said property may not passed into the possession
of strangers are void, inasmuch as the said widow had no obligation to reserve same, as Mercedes
Florentino is a forced heiress of her mother Severina Faz de Leon; that, in the present case, there is no
property reserved for the plaintiffs since there is a forced heiress, entitled to the property left by the
death of the widow Severina Faz de Leon who never remarried; that the obligation to reserve is
secondary to the duty of respecting the legitime; that in the instant case, the widow Severina Faz de
Leon was in duty bound to respect the legitime of her daughter Mercedes the defendant; that her
obligation to reserve the property could not be fulfilled to the prejudice of the legitime which belongs
to her forced heiress, citing in support of these statements the decision of the supreme court of Spain
of January 4, 1911; that, finally, the application of article 811 of the Civil Code in favor of the plaintiffs
would presuppose the exclusion of the defendant from here right to succeed exclusively to all the
property, rights and actions left by her legitimate mother, although the said defendant has a better
right than the plaintiffs; and that there would be injustice if the property claimed be adjudicated to the
plaintiffs, as well as violation of section 5 of the Jones Law which invalidates any law depriving any
person of an equal protection. Wherefore they prayed that the demurrer be sustained, with costs
against the plaintiffs.
After the hearing of the demurrer, on August 22, 1918, the judge absolved the defendants from the
complaint and condemned the plaintiffs to pay the costs.
Counsel for the plaintiffs excepted to this order, moved to vacate it and to grant them a new trial; said
motion was overruled; the plaintiffs expected thereto and filed the corresponding bill of exceptions
which was allowed, certified and forwarded to the clerk of this court.
On appeal the trial judge sustained the demurrer of the defendants to the complaint of the plaintiffs,
but, instead of ordering the latter to amend their complaint within the period prescribed by the rules
— undoubtedly believing that the plaintiffs could not alter nor change the facts constituting the cause
of action, and that, as both parties were agreed as to the facts alleged in the complaint as well as in the
demurrer, every question reduced itself to one of the law, already submitted to the decision of the
court — the said judge, disregarding the ordinary procedure established by law, decided the case by
absolving the defendants from the complaint and by condemning the plaintiffs to pay the costs of the
instance.
There certainly was no real trial, inasmuch as the defendants, instead of answering the complaint of
the plaintiffs, confined themselves to filing a demurrer based on the ground that the facts alleged in
the complaint do not constitute a cause of action. However, the judge preferred to absolve the
defendants, thereby making an end to the cause, instead of dismissing the same, because undoubtedly
he believed, in view of the controversy between the parties, that the arguments adduced to support
the demurrer would be the same which the defendants would allege in their answer — those dealing
with a mere question of law which the courts would have to decide — and that, the demurrer having
been sustained, if the plaintiffs should insist — they could do no less — upon alleging the same facts
as those set out in their complaint and if another demurrer were afterwards set up, he would be obliged
to dismiss said complaint with costs against the plaintiffs — in spite of being undoubtedly convinced
in the instant case that the plaintiffs absolutely lack the right to bring the action stated in their
complaint.
Being of the opinion that the emendation of the indicated defects is not necessary — as in this case
what has been done does not prejudice the parties — the appellate court will now proceed to decide
the suit according to its merits, as found in the record and to the legal provisions applicable to the
question of law in controversy so that unnecessary delay and greater expense may be avoided,
inasmuch as, even if all the ordinary proceedings be followed, the suit would be subsequently decided
in the manner and terms that it is now decided in the opinion thoughtfully and conscientiously formed
for its determination.
In order to decide whether the plaintiffs are or are not entitled to invoke, in their favor, the provisions
of article 811 of the Civil Code, and whether the same article is applicable to the question of law
presented in this suit, it is necessary to determine whether the property enumerated in paragraph 5
of the complaint is of the nature of reservable property; and if so, whether in accordance with the
provision of the Civil Code in article 811, Severina Faz de Leon (the widow of the deceased Apolonio
Isabelo Florentino) who inherited said property from her son Apolonio Florentino III (born after the
death of his father Apolonio Isabelo) had the obligation to preserve and reserve same for the relatives,
within the third degree, of her aforementioned deceased son Apolonio III.
The above mentioned article reads:
Any ascendant who inherits from his descendant any property acquired by the latter
gratuitously from some other ascendant, or from a brother or sister, is obliged to reserve
such of the property as he may have acquired by operation of law for the benefit of relatives
within the third degree belonging to the line from which such property came.
During the marriage of Apolonio Isabelo Florentino II and Severina Faz de Leon two children were
born, namely the defendant Mercedes Florentino and Apolonio Florentino III (born after the death of
his father). At the death of Apolonio Isabelo Florentino under a will, his eleven children succeeded to
the inheritance he left, one of whom, the posthumos son Apolonio III, was given, as his share, the
aforementioned property enumerated in the complaint. In 1891 the said posthumos son Apolonio
Florentino III died and was succeeded by his legitimate mother Severina Faz de Leon, who inherited
the property he left and who on dying, November 18, 1908, instituted by will as her sole heiress her
surviving daughter, Mercedes Florentino, the defendant herein, who took possession of all property
left by her father, same constituting the inheritance. Included in said inheritance is the property,
specified in by the posthumos son Apolonio Florentino III from his father Apolonio Isabelo Florentino,
and which, at the death of the said posthumos son, had in turn been inherited by his mother, Severina
Faz de Leon. Even if Severina left in her will said property, together with her own, to her only daughter
and forced heiress, Mercedes Florentino, nevertheless this property had not lost its reservable nature
inasmuch as it originated from the common ancestor of the litigants, Apolonio Isabelo; was inherited
by his son Apolonio III; was transmitted by same (by operation of law) to his legitimate mother and
ascendant, Severina Faz de Leon.
The posthumos son, Apolonio Florentino III, acquired the property, now claimed by his brothers, by a
lucrative title or by inheritance from his aforementioned legitimate father, Apolonio Isabelo Florentino
II. Although said property was inherited by his mother, Severina Faz de Leon, nevertheless, she was in
duty bound, according to article 811 of the Civil Code, to reserve the property thus acquired for the
benefit of the relatives, within the third degree, of the line from which such property came.
According to the provisions of law, ascendants do not inherit the reservable property, but its
enjoyment, use or trust, merely for the reason that said law imposes the obligation to reserve and
preserve same for certain designated persons who, on the death of the said ascendants reservists,
(taking into consideration the nature of the line from which such property came) acquire the
ownership of said property in fact and by operation of law in the same manner as forced heirs (because
they are also such) — said property reverts to said line as long as the aforementioned persons who,
from the death of the ascendant-reservists, acquire in fact the right of reservatarios (person for whom
property is reserved), and are relatives, within the third degree, of the descendant from whom the
reservable property came.
Any ascendant who inherits from his descendant any property, while there are living, within the third
degree, relatives of the latter, is nothing but a life usufructuary or a fiduciary of the reservable property
received. He is, however, the legitimate owner of his own property which is not reservable property
and which constitutes his legitime, according to article 809 of the Civil Code. But if, afterwards, all of
the relatives, within the third degree, of the descendant (from whom came the reservable property)
die or disappear, the said property becomes free property, by operation of law, and is thereby
converted into the legitime of the ascendant heir who can transmit it at his death to his legitimate
successors or testamentary heirs. This property has now lost its nature of reservable property,
pertaining thereto at the death of the relatives, called reservatarios, who belonged within the third
degree to the line from which such property came.lawphil.net
Following the order prescribed by law in legitimate succession, when there are relatives of the
descendant within the third degree, the right of the nearest relative, called reservatario, over the
property which the reservista (person holding it subject to reservation) should return to him, excludes
that of the one more remote. The right of representation cannot be alleged when the one claiming same
as a reservatario of the reservable property is not among the relatives within the third degree
belonging to the line from which such property came, inasmuch as the right granted by the Civil Code
in article 811 is in the highest degree personal and for the exclusive benefit of designated persons who
are the relatives, within the third degree, of the person from whom the reservable property came.
Therefore, relatives of the fourth and the succeeding degrees can never be considered as reservatarios,
since the law does not recognize them as such.
In spite of what has been said relative to the right of representation on the part of one alleging his right
as reservatario who is not within the third degree of relationship, nevertheless there is right of
representation on the part of reservatarios who are within the third degree mentioned by law, as in the
case of nephews of the deceased person from whom the reservable property came.
These reservatarios have the right to represent their ascendants (fathers and mothers) who are the
brothers of the said deceased person and relatives within the third degree in accordance with article
811 of the Civil Code.
In this case it is conceded without denial by defendants, that the plaintiffs Encarnacion, Gabriel and
Magdalena are the legitimate children of the first marriage of the deceased Apolonio Isabelo Florentino
II; that Ramon, Miguel, Ceferino, Antonio, and Rosario are both grandchildren of Apolonio Isabelo
Florentino II, and children of his deceased son, Jose Florentino; that the same have the right to
represent their aforementioned father, Jose Florentino; that Emilia, Jesus, Lourdes, Caridad, and
Dolores are the legitimate children of the deceased Espirita Florentino, one of the daughters of the
deceased Apolonio Isabelo Florentino II, and represent the right of their aforementioned mother; and
that the other plaintiffs, Jose and Asuncion, have also the right to represent their legitimate father
Pedro Florentino one of the sons of the aforementioned Apolonio Isabelo Florentino II. It is a fact,
admitted by both parties, that the other children of the first marriage of the deceased Apolonio Isabelo
Florentino II died without issue so that this decision does not deal with them.
There are then seven "reservatarios" who are entitled to the reservable property left at the death of
Apolonio III; the posthumos son of the aforementioned Apolonio Isabelo II, to wit, his three children of
his first marriage — Encarnacion, Gabriel, Magdalena; his three children, Jose, Espirita and Pedro who
are represented by their own twelve children respectively; and Mercedes Florentino, his daughter by
a second marriage. All of the plaintiffs are the relatives of the deceased posthumos son, Apolonio
Florentino III, within the third degree (four of whom being his half-brothers and the remaining twelve
being his nephews as they are the children of his three half-brothers). As the first four are his relatives
within the third degree in their own right and the other twelve are such by representation, all of them
are indisputably entitled as reservatarios to the property which came from the common ancestor,
Apolonio Isabelo, to Apolonio Florentino III by inheritance during his life-time, and in turn by
inheritance to his legitimate mother, Severina Faz de Leon, widow of the aforementioned Apolonio
Isabelo Florentino II.
In spite of the provisions of article 811 of the Civil Code already cited, the trial judge refused to accept
the theory of the plaintiffs and, accepting that of the defendants, absolved the latter from the complaint
on the ground that said article is absolutely inapplicable to the instant case, inasmuch as the defendant
Mercedes Florentino survived her brother, Apolonio III, from whom the reservable property came and
her mother, Severina Faz de Leon, the widow of her father, Apolonio Isabelo Florentino II; that the
defendant Mercedes, being the only daughter of Severina Faz de Leon, is likewise her forced heiress;
that when she inherited the property left at the death of her mother, together with that which came
from her deceased brother Apolonio III, the fundamental object of article 811 of the Code was thereby
complied with, inasmuch as the danger that the property coming from the same line might fall into the
hands of strangers had been avoided; and that the hope or expectation on the part of the plaintiffs of
the right to acquire the property of the deceased Apolonio III never did come into existence because
there is a forced heiress who is entitled to such property.
The judgment appealed from is also founded on the theory that article 811 of the Civil Code does not
destroy the system of legitimate succession and that the pretension of the plaintiffs to apply said article
in the instant case would be permitting the reservable right to reduce and impair the forced legitimate
which exclusively belongs to the defendant Mercedes Florentino, in violation of the precept of article
813 of the same Code which provides that the testator cannot deprive his heirs of their legitime, except
in the cases expressly determined by law. Neither can he impose upon it any burden, condition, or
substitution of any kind whatsoever, saving the provisions concerning the usufruct of the surviving
spouse, citing the decision of the Supreme Court of Spain of January 4, 1911.
The principal question submitted to the court for decision consists mainly in determining whether they
property left at the death of Apolonio III, the posthumos son of Apolonio Isabelo II, was or was not
invested with the character of reservable property when it was received by his mother, Severina Faz
de Leon.
The property enumerated by the plaintiffs in paragraph 5 of their complaint came, without any doubt
whatsoever, from the common ancestor Apolonio Isabelo II, and when, on the death of Apolonio III
without issue the same passed by operation of law into the hands of his legitimate mother, Severina
Faz de Leon, it became reservable property, in accordance with the provision of article 811 of the Code,
with the object that the same should not fall into the possession of persons other than those
comprehended within the order of person other than those comprehended within the order of
succession traced by the law from Apolonio Isabelo II, the source of said property. If this property was
in fact clothed with the character and condition of reservable property when Severina Faz de Leon
inherited same from her son Apolonio III, she did not thereby acquire the dominion or right of
ownership but only the right of usufruct or of fiduciary with the necessary obligation to preserve and
to deliver or return it as such reservable property to her deceased son's relatives within the third
degree, among whom is her daughter, Mercedes Florentino.
Reservable property neither comes, nor falls under, the absolute dominion of the ascendant who
inherits and receives same from his descendant, therefore it does not form part of his own property
nor become the legitimate of his forced heirs. It becomes his own property only in case that all the
relatives of his descendant shall have died (reservista) in which case said reservable property losses
such character.
With full right Severina Faz de Leon could have disposed in her will of all her own property in favor of
her only living daughter, Mercedes Florentino, as forced heiress. But whatever provision there is in her
will concerning the reservable property received from her son Apolonio III, or rather, whatever
provision will reduce the rights of the other reservatarios, the half brothers and nephews of her
daughter Mercedes, is unlawful, null and void, inasmuch as said property is not her own and she has
only the right of usufruct or of fiduciary, with the obligation to preserve and to deliver same to
the reservatarios, one of whom is her own daughter, Mercedes Florentino.
It cannot reasonably be affirmed, founded upon an express provision of law, that by operation of law
all of the reservable property, received during lifetime by Severina Faz de Leon from her son, Apolonio
III, constitutes or forms parts of the legitime pertaining to Mercedes Florentino. If said property did
not come to be the legitimate and exclusive property of Severina Faz de Leon, her only legitimate and
forced heiress, the defendant Mercedes, could not inherit all by operation of law and in accordance
with the order of legitimate succession, because the other relatives of the deceased Apolonio III, within
the third degree, as well as herself are entitled to such reservable property.
For this reason, in no manner can it be claimed that the legitime of Mercedes Florentino, coming from
the inheritance of her mother Severina Faz de Leon, has been reduced and impaired; and the
application of article 811 of the Code to the instant case in no way prejudices the rights of the defendant
Mercedes Florentino, inasmuch as she is entitled to a part only of the reservable property, there being
no lawful or just reason which serves as real foundation to disregard the right to Apolonio III's other
relatives, within the third degree, to participate in the reservable property in question. As these
relatives are at present living, claiming for it with an indisputable right, we cannot find any reasonable
and lawful motive why their rights should not be upheld and why they should not be granted equal
participation with the defendant in the litigated property.
The claim that because of Severina Faz de Leon's forced heiress, her daughter Mercedes, the property
received from the deceased son Apolonio III lost the character, previously held, of reservable property;
and that the mother, the said Severina, therefore, had no further obligation to reserve same for the
relatives within the third degree of the deceased Apolonio III, is evidently erroneous for the reason
that, as has been already stated, the reservable property, left in a will by the aforementioned Severina
to her only daughter Mercedes, does not form part of the inheritance left by her death nor of the
legitimate of the heiress Mercedes. Just because she has a forced heiress, with a right to her inheritance,
does not relieve Severina of her obligation to reserve the property which she received from her
deceased son, nor did same lose the character of reservable property, held before
the reservatariosreceived same.
Concerning the prayer in the complaint relative to the indemnity for damages and the delivery of the
fruits collected, it is not proper to grant the first for there is no evidence of any damage which can give
rise to the obligation of refunding same. As to the second, the delivery of the fruits produced by the
land forming the principal part of the reservable property, the defendants are undoubtedly in duty
bound to deliver to the plaintiffs six-sevenths of the fruits or rents of the portions of land claimed in
the complaint, in the quantity expressed in paragraph 11 of the same, from January 17, 1918, the date
the complaint was filed; and the remaining seventh part should go to the defendant Mercedes.
For the foregoing reasons it follows that with the reversal of the order of decision appealed from we
should declare, as we hereby do, that the aforementioned property, inherited by the deceased Severina
Faz de Leon from her son Apolonio Florentino III, is reservable property; that the plaintiffs, being
relatives of the deceased Apolonio III within the third degree, are entitled to six-sevenths of said
reservable property; that the defendant Mercedes is entitled to the remaining seventh part thereof;
that the latter, together with her husband Angel Encarnacion, shall deliver to the plaintiffs, jointly, six-
sevenths of the fruits or rents, claimed from said portion of the land and of the quantity claimed, from
January 17, 1918, until fully delivered; and that the indemnity for one thousand pesos (P1,000) prayed
for in the complaint is denied, without special findings as to the costs of both instances. So ordered.

It is true that when Mercedes Florentino, the heiress of the reservista Severina, took possession of the
property in question, same did not pass into the hands of strangers. But it is likewise true that the said
Mercedes is not the only reservataria. And there is no reason founded upon law and upon the principle
of justice why the other reservatarios, the other brothers and nephews, relatives within the third
degree in accordance with the precept of article 811 of the Civil Code, should be deprived of portions
of the property which, as reservable property, pertain to them.

From the foregoing it has been shown that the doctrine announced by the Supreme Court of Spain on
January 4, 1911, for the violation of articles 811, 968 and consequently of the Civil Code is not
applicable in the instant case.

Following the provisions of article 813, the Supreme Court of Spain held that the legitime of the forced
heirs cannot be reduced or impaired and said article is expressly respected in this decision.

However, in spite of the efforts of the appellee to defend their supposed rights, it has not been shown,
upon any legal foundation, that the reservable property belonged to, and was under the absolute
dominion of, the reservista, there being relatives within the third degree of the person from whom
same came; that said property, upon passing into the hands of the forced heiress of the deceased
reservista, formed part of the legitime of the former; and that the said forced heiress, in addition to
being a reservataria, had an exclusive right to receive all of said property and to deprive the
other reservatarios, her relatives within the third degree of certain portions thereof.
G.R. No. L-12957 March 24, 1961
CONSTANCIO SIENES, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants,
vs.
FIDEL ESPARCIA, ET AL., defendants-appellees..
DIZON, J.:
Appellants commenced this action below to secure judgment (1) declaring null and void the sale executed by
Paulina and Cipriana Yaeso in favor of appellees, the spouses Fidel Esparcia and Paulina Sienes; (2) ordering
the Esparcia spouses to reconvey to appellants Lot 3368 of the Cadastral Survey of Ayuquitan (now Amlan),
Oriental Negros; and (3) ordering all the appellees to pay, jointly and severally, to appellants the sum of
P500.00 as damages, plus the costs of suit. In their answer appellees disclaimed any knowledge or
information regarding the sale allegedly made on April 20, 1951 by Andrea Gutang in favor of appellants and
alleged that, if such sale was made, the same was void on the ground that Andrea Gutang had no right to
dispose of the property subject matter thereof. They further alleged that said property had never been in
possession of appellants, the truth being that appellees, as owners, had been in continuous possession thereof
since the death of Francisco Yaeso. By way of affirmative defense and counterclaim, they further alleged that
on July 30, 1951, Paulina and Cipriana Yaeso, as the only surviving heirs of Francisco Yaeso, executed a public
instrument of sale in favor of the spouses Fidel Esparcia and Paulina Sienes, the said sale having been
registered together with an affidavit of adjudication executed by Paulina and Cipriana on July 18, 1951, as
sole surviving heirs of the aforesaid deceased; that since then the Esparcias had been in possession of the
property as owners.
After trial upon the issues thus joined, the lower court rendered judgment as follows:
IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING, judgment is hereby rendered declaring (1) that the sale of Lot
No. 3368 made by Andrea Gutang to the plaintiff spouses Constancio Sienes and Genoveva Silay is
void, and the reconveyance prayed for by them is denied; (2) that the sale made by Paulina and
Cipriana Yaeso in favor of defendants Fidel Esparcia and Paulina Sienes involving the same lot is
also void, and they have no valid title thereto; and (3) that the reservable property in question is
part of and must be reverted to the estate of Cipriana Yaeso, the lone surviving relative and heir of
Francisco Yaeso at the death of Andrea Gutang as of December 13, 1951. No pronouncement as to
the costs.
From the above decision the Sienes spouse interposed the present appeal, their principal contentions being,
firstly, that the lower court erred in holding that Lot 3368 of the Cadastral Survey of Ayuquitan was a
reservable property; secondly, in annulling the sale of said lot executed by Andrea Gutang in their favor; and
lastly, in holding that Cipriana Yaeso, as reservee, was entitled to inherit said land.
There is no dispute as to the following facts:
Lot 3368 originally belonged to Saturnino Yaeso. With his first wife, Teresa Ruales, he had four children
named Agaton, Fernando, Paulina and Cipriana, while with his second wife, Andrea Gutang, he had an only
son named Francisco. According to the cadastral records of Ayuquitan, the properties left by Saturnino upon
his death — the date of which does not clearly appear of record — were left to his children as follows: Lot
3366 to Cipriana, Lot 3367 to Fernando, Lot 3375 to Agaton, Lot 3377 (southern portion) to Paulina, and Lot
3368 (western portion) to Francisco. As a result of the cadastral proceedings, Original Certificate of Title No.
10275 covering Lot 3368 was issued in the name of Francisco. Because Francisco was a minor at the time,
his mother administered the property for him, declared it in her name for taxation purposes (Exhs A & A-1),
and paid the taxes due thereon (Exhs. B, C, C-1 & C-2). When Francisco died on May 29, 1932 at the age of 20,
single and without any descendant, his mother, as his sole heir, executed the public instrument Exhibit F
entitled EXTRAJUDICIAL SETTLEMENT AND SALE whereby, among other things, for and in consideration of
the sum of P800.00 she sold the property in question to appellants. When thereafter said vendees demanded
from Paulina Yaeso and her husband Jose Esparcia, the surrender of Original Certificate of Title No. 10275 —
which was in their possession — the latter refused, thus giving rise to the filing of the corresponding motion
in the cadastral record No. 507. The same, however, was denied (Exhs. 8 & 9).
Thereafter, or more specifically, on July 30, 1951, Cipriana and Paulina Yaeso, the surviving half-sisters of
Francisco, and who as such had declared the property in their name, on January 1, 1951 executed a deed of
sale in favor of the spouses Fidel Esparcia and Paulina Sienes (Exh. 2) who, in turn, declared it in their name
for tax purposes and thereafter secured the issuance in their name of Transfer Certificate of Title No. T-2141
(Exhs. 5 & 5-A).
As held by the trial court, it is clear upon the facts already stated, that the land in question was reservable
property. Francisco Yaeso inherited it by operation of law from his father Saturnino, and upon Francisco's
death, unmarried and without descendants, it was inherited, in turn, by his mother, Andrea Gutang. The latter
was, therefore, under obligation to reserve it for the benefit of relatives within the third degree belonging to
the line from which said property came, if any survived her. The record discloses in this connection that
Andrea Gutang died on December 13, 1951, the lone reservee surviving her being Cipriana Yaeso who died
only on January 13, 1952 (Exh. 10).
In connection with reservable property, the weight of opinion is that the reserve creates two resolutory
conditions, namely, (1) the death of the ascendant obliged to reserve and (2) the survival, at the time of his
death, of relatives within the third degree belonging to the line from which the property came (6 Manresa
268-269; 6 Sanchez Roman 1934). This Court has held in connection with this matter that the reservista has
the legal title and dominion to the reservable property but subject to a resolutory condition; that he is like a
life usufructuary of the reservable property; that he may alienate the same but subject to reservation, said
alienation transmitting only the revocable and conditional ownership of the reservists, the rights acquired
by the transferee being revoked or resolved by the survival of reservatarios at the time of the death of the
reservista (Edroso vs. Sablan, 25 Phil. 295; Lunsod vs. Ortega, 46 Phil. 664; Florentino vs. Florentino, 40 Phil.
480; and Director of Lands vs. Aguas, 65 Phil. 279).
The sale made by Andrea Gutang in favor of appellees was, therefore, subject to the condition that the
vendees would definitely acquire ownership, by virtue of the alienation, only if the vendor died without being
survived by any person entitled to the reservable property. Inasmuch much as when Andrea Gutang died,
Cipriana Yaeso was still alive, the conclusion becomes inescapable that the previous sale made by the former
in favor of appellants became of no legal effect and the reservable property subject matter thereof passed in
exclusive ownership to Cipriana.
On the other hand, it is also clear that the sale executed by the sisters Paulina and Cipriana Yaeso in favor of
the spouses Fidel Esparcia and Paulina Sienes was subject to a similar resolutory condition. The reserve
instituted by law in favor of the heirs within the third degree belonging to the line from which the reservable
property came, constitutes a real right which the reservee may alienate and dispose of, albeit conditionally,
the condition being that the alienation shall transfer ownership to the vendee only if and when the reservee
survives the person obliged to reserve. In the present case, Cipriana Yaeso, one of the reservees, was still
alive when Andrea Gutang, the person obliged to reserve, died. Thus the former became the absolute owner
of the reservable property upon Andrea's death. While it may be true that the sale made by her and her sister
prior to this event, became effective because of the occurrence of the resolutory condition, we are not now in
a position to reverse the appealed decision, in so far as it orders the reversion of the property in question to
the Estate of Cipriana Yaeso, because the vendees — the Esparcia spouses did — not appeal therefrom.
WHEREFORE, the appealed decision — as above modified — is affirmed, with costs, and without prejudice
to whatever action in equity the Esparcia spouses may have against the Estate of Cipriana Yaeso for the
reconveyance of the property in question.
G.R. No. 7890 September 29, 1914
FILOMENA PECSON, as administratix of the last will and testament of Florencio Pecson, et
al., plaintiffs-appellants,
vs.
ROSARIO MEDIAVILLO, defendant-appellee.
S. E. Imperial for appellants.
Tomas Lorayes for appellee.
JOHNSON, J.:
It appears from the record that some time prior to the 17th day of September, 1910, the last will
and testament of Florencio Pecson was presented to the Court of First Instance of the Province
of Albay for probate. Mr. Tomas Lorayes, an attorney at law, opposed the legislation of the will
on the ground that it had not been authorized nor signed by the deceased, in accordance with the
provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure. After hearing the respective parties, the Honorable
Percy M. Moir, judge, found that the will had been signed and executed in accordance with the
provisions of law, and denied the opposition on the 17th day of September, 1910.
On the 18th day of September, 1910, the said Tomas Lorayes, representing Basiliso Mediavillo
and Rosario Mediavillo, presented a motion in the words following:
1. That Rosario Mediavillo is and Joaquin Mediavillo was a legitimate child of the
deceased Teresa Pecson, who also was a daughter of the testator, Florencio Pecson, and
therefore the first mentioned is and the second was a grandchild of the latter.
2. That the said granddaughter, Rosario Mediavillo y Pecson, was disinherited by her
grandfather, the testator Florencio Pecson, according to clause 3 of the will, because she
failed to show him due respect and on a certain occasion raised her hand against him.
3. That the interested party did not commit such an act, and if perhaps she did, it was
due to the derangement of her mental faculties which occurred a long time ago and from
which she now suffers in periodical attacks.
By reason of all the foregoing and because the disinheriting clause 3 of the will is
unfounded, the undersigned prays the court to annul the said clause and to make the
testator's died without succession, but is represented now by his father, Basiliso
Mediavillo), participants in the estate left by their grandfather; and, finally, that the
court grant such other relief as it may deem just and equitable.
After a consideration of the question presented by said motion, the lower court, on the 22d day
of September, 1911, rendered the following decision:
This case has come up to-day for a hearing on the declaration of heirs of the decease
Florencio Pecson, who died in Daraga, about the year 1910.
From the evidence it appears that the deceased had eight children by his wife Nicolasa
Manjares, likewise deceased, which children are those named Emerenciano, Teresa,
Filomena, Asunsion, Rufino, Zoila, Emiliano, and Perfecto, all surnamed Pecson. It also
appears that Rufino Pecson absented himself from these Islands twenty-five years ago,
going to Australia, and that nothing has been heard of him for the past twenty years.
The said Rufino Pecson left no children in the Philippines and was unmarried when he
emigrated. As nothing has been heard of him for twenty years, it is presumed that he
died and it is held that the part of this estate to which he was entitled must be divided
among the other heirs.
It also appears from the evidence that Teresa Pecson married Basiliso Mediavillo, by
whom she had two children, Joaquin and Rosario Mediavillo. Teresa also died, leaving
these two children and her husband, Basiliso Mediavillo. Her son Joaquin died,
unmarried and childless, before the death of the testator, Florencio Pecson. Rosario is
the only living daughter of Teresa and the latter's husband, Basiliso Mediavillo, is also
living. The evidence shows that this girl Rosario became insane in 1895, when she went
to Nueva Caceres to study in college, and it has been proved that it was previous to this
date that she disobeyed her grandfather and raised her hand against him, and, as the
testator states in the third paragraph of his will, he disinherited her. This court
understands that this Rosario, who was then 14 years of age, and who shortly
afterwards became insane, was not responsible for her acts and should not have been
disinherited by her grandfather.
The court therefore decrees that this part of the will is contrary to law and sets it aside
as being of no force or value whatever. The court further holds that Rosario Mediavillo,
the daughter of Teresa Pecson, is the heiress of the one-half of the share of this estate
pertaining to the said Teresa, and that her father, as the heir of his son Joaquin, also
Teresa's son, is the heris of the other one-half of the said share pertaining to Teresa —
that is, of the one-seventh of this estate that pertains to the latter. Moreover, the court
decrees that, besides the two heirs just above mentioned, Emerciano, Filomena,
Asuncion, Zoila, Emiliano, and Perfecto, surnamed Pecson, and the children of Teresa,
are also heirs of the estate of Florencio Pecson.
From the decision the plaintiff appealed to this court and made the following assignments of
error:
FIRST ERROR
The lower court erred in finding that the part of the will which disinherits Rosario
Mediavillo is contrary to law, and in setting it aside as being of no force or value
whatever.
SECOND ERROR
The lower court erred by decreeing that Basaliso Mediavillo, the father of Joaquin
Mediavillo, is the heir by representation of the one-half of the one seventh of this estate
pertaining to Joaquin Mediavillo.
With reference to the first assignment of error it may be said that from the record it appears that
during the lifetime of Florencio Pecson he had been married to Nicolasa Manjares, with whom he
had eight children, named Filomena, Asuncion, Zoila, Emerenciano, Emiliano, Perfecto, Rufino
and Teresa Pecson; that before the death of Florencio Pecson he executed and delivered the will
in question. The will made no provision for the said Rufino Pecson, neither was there any
provision in the will for the said Teresa. All of the other children were named as heirs in said will.
It appears that Teresa had been married with one Basiliso Mediavillo, and that some time before
the making of the will in question she died, leaving her husband and two children, Joaquin
Mediavillo and Rosario Mediavillo, as her heirs. It also appears from the record that Joaquin
Mediavillo died without heirs, leaving as the only heirs of the said Teresa Pecson, her husband,
Basilio Mediavillo and the said Rosario Mediavillo. The said Joaquin Mediavillo died before his
grandfather, Florencio Pecson, and probably before the will in question was made.
Paragraph 3 of the will disinherited Rosario Mediavillo in the following language:
I declare that one of my daughters, named Teresa, now deceased, left a legitimate
daughter named Rosario Mediavillo. I also declare that I disinherit my granddaughter,
the said Rosario Mediavillo, because she was grossly disrespectful to me and because
on one occasion, when it was I do not remember, she raised her hand against me.
Therefore, it is my will that the said Rosario Mediavillo shall have no share in my
property.
The defendant, Rosario Mediavillo, in the motion which she presented and which is copied above,
alleges that she was disinherited without case. Upon a consideration of that question, the lower
court found that she had been disinherited without cause and annulled said paragraph 3 of the
will. That order of the lower court constitutes the error complained of by the appellant in her
first assignment of error.
By reference to said paragraph 3 above quoted, it will be seen that Florencio Pecson disinherited
the said Rosario Mediavillo "because she was grossly disrespectful to me and because on one
occasion, when it was I do not remember, she raised her hand against me. Therefore it is my will
that she, the said Rosario Mediavillo, shall have no share in my property."
The lower court admitted proof the question of the responsibility of the said Rosario Mediavillo
at the time she offered the offense to her grandfather, Florencio Pecson. After hearing the proof,
the lower court reached the following conclusion:
The evidence shows that this girl Rosario became insane in 1895, when she went to
Nueva Caceres to study in college, and it has been proved that it was previous to this
date that she disobeyed her grandfather and raised her hand against him, and, as the
testator states in the third paragraph of his will, he disinherited her. This court
understands that this Rosario, who was then 14 years of age, and who shortly
afterwards became insane, was not responsible for her acts and should not have been
disinherited by her grandfather.
The first assignment of error presents the question whether or not the courts, when a parent
disinherits his children, may inquire into the cause of the disinheritance and decide that there
was or was not ground for such disinheritance. The Civil Code (art. 848) provides that
disinheritance shall only take place for one of the causes expressly fixed by law. In accordance
with the provisions of that article (848) we find that articles 756 and 853 provide the cases or
causes for disinheritance; or, in other words, the cases or causes in which the ancestors may by
will disinherit their heirs. Article 849 of the Civil Code provides that the disinheritance
can only be effected by the testament, in which shall be mentioned the legal grounds or causes
for such disinheritance. If it is true that heirs can be disinherited only by will, and for causes
mentioned in the Civil Code, it would seen to follow that the courts might properly inquire
whether the disinheritance has been made properly and for the causes provided for by law. The
right of the courts to inquire into the causes and whether there was sufficient cause for the
disinheritance or not, seems to be supported by express provisions of the Civil Code. Article 850
provides that "the proof of the truthfulness of the reason for disinheritance shall be established
by the heirs of the testator, should the disinherited person deny it." It would appear then that if
the person disinherited should deny the truthfulness of the cause of disinheritance, he might be
permitted to support his allegation by proof. The right of the court to inquire whether or not the
disinheritance was made for just cause is also sustained by the provisions of article 851, which
in part provides that:
Disinheritance made without statement of the reason, or for a cause the truth of which,
if contradicted, should not be proven . . . shall annul the designation of heirship, in so
far as it prejudices the person disinherited.
It seems clear from the above-quoted provisions, that the courts may inquire into the justice of a
disinheritance such as was attempted in the present case, and if they find that the disinheritance
was without cause, that part of the testament or will may be pronounced null and void. It remains,
however, to be seen whether the evidence adduced during the trial of the present cause was
sufficient to show that the disinheritance made in paragraph 3 of the will was made for just cause.
It appears from the record that when Rosario Mediavillo was about 14 years of age, she had
received some attentions from a young man — that she had received a letter from him — and
that her grandfather, Florencio Pecson, took occasion to talk to her about the relations between
her and the said young man; that it was upon that occasion when, it is alleged, the disobedience
and disrespect were shown to her grandfather, and that was the cause for her disinheritance by
her grandfather. The record shows that very soon after said event she lost the use of her mental
powers and that she has never regained them, except for very brief periods, up to the present
time. The lower court, taking into consideration her tender years, and the fact that she very soon
thereafter lost the use of her mental faculties, reached the conclusion that she was probably not
responsible for the disrespect and disobedience shown to her grandfather in the year 1894 or
1895.
After a careful consideration of the record, we are inclined to believe that the same supports the
conclusions of the lower court and that the same supports the conclusions of the lower court that
he did not commit the error complained of in the first assignment of error.
With reference to the second assignment of error, it will be remembered that Teresa Pecson, the
mother of Rosario Mediavillo, at the time of her death left two children, Rosario and Joaquin, and
her husband Basiliso Mediavillo, and that said Joaquin Mediavillo died without heirs. The lower
court gave one-half of the inheritance of the said Teresa Pecson to Rosario Mediavillo and the
share that would have gone to Joaquin Mediavillo, and the share that would have gone to Joaquin
Mediavillo, to his father Basiliso Mediavillo. In that conclusion of the lower court we think error
was committed. The appellant relies upon the provisions of article 925 of the Civil Code, in his
contention that the lower court committed an error. Article 925 provides that:

The right of representation shall always take place in the direct descending line, but
never in the ascending. In collateral lines, it shall take place only in favor of the children
of brothers or sisters, whether they be of the whole or half blood.

The appellee, in support of the conclusions of the lower court, cites articles 935 and 936 of the
Civil Code. Article 935 provides that:

In the absence of legitimate children and descendants of the deceased, his ascendants
shall inherit from him, to the exclusion of collaterals.

Article 936 provides that:

The father and mother, if living shall inherits share and share alike. If one of them only
survive, he or she shall succeed to the son's entire estate.

It will be remembered that the whole argument of the appellants with reference to the first
assignment of error was that Rosario Mediavillo had been disinherited and the court evidently
believed that there were no "legitimate children, descendants of the deceased, surviving," and
that therefore the father or mother of said legitimate children would inherit as ascendants.
Inasmuch, however, as there was a descendant in the direct line, surviving, the inheritance could
not ascend, and for the reason the lower court committed an error in declaring that Basiliso
Mediavillo was entitled to inherit that share of the estate that would have belonged to Joaquin
Mediavillo, had he been living. Therefore, and for all the foregoing, that part of the judgment of
the lower court nullifying and setting aside paragraph 3 of the will is hereby affirmed, and that
art of said judgment which decrees to Basiliso Mediavillo one-half of the estate of Florencio
Pecson, belonging to Teresa Pecson and which would have been given to Joaquin Mediavillo, had
he been surviving, is hereby revoked. And without any findings as to costs, it is hereby ordered
that the cause be remanded to the lower court, with direction that judgment be entered in
accordance herewith, and that such further proceedings be had as the interested parties may
deem necessary, for the purpose of disposing of that part of the inheritance of Teresa Pecson
would have belonged to Joaquin Mediavillo, had he been surviving.