The Supreme Court denied probate of Exhibit "A", purported to be the last will and testament of Reverend Sancho Abadia. At the time the will was executed in 1923 and when Abadia died in 1943, Philippine law did not permit holographic wills. Exhibit "A" was handwritten but did not comply with other legal requirements for wills at that time, such as numbering and signing each page. The Court ruled the validity of a will depends on the law at the time of execution, not later laws. Applying the law in force in 1923, Exhibit "A" was not a valid will and denying probate did not invalidate vested inheritance rights that accrued at Abadia
The Supreme Court denied probate of Exhibit "A", purported to be the last will and testament of Reverend Sancho Abadia. At the time the will was executed in 1923 and when Abadia died in 1943, Philippine law did not permit holographic wills. Exhibit "A" was handwritten but did not comply with other legal requirements for wills at that time, such as numbering and signing each page. The Court ruled the validity of a will depends on the law at the time of execution, not later laws. Applying the law in force in 1923, Exhibit "A" was not a valid will and denying probate did not invalidate vested inheritance rights that accrued at Abadia
The Supreme Court denied probate of Exhibit "A", purported to be the last will and testament of Reverend Sancho Abadia. At the time the will was executed in 1923 and when Abadia died in 1943, Philippine law did not permit holographic wills. Exhibit "A" was handwritten but did not comply with other legal requirements for wills at that time, such as numbering and signing each page. The Court ruled the validity of a will depends on the law at the time of execution, not later laws. Applying the law in force in 1923, Exhibit "A" was not a valid will and denying probate did not invalidate vested inheritance rights that accrued at Abadia
The Supreme Court denied probate of Exhibit "A", purported to be the last will and testament of Reverend Sancho Abadia. At the time the will was executed in 1923 and when Abadia died in 1943, Philippine law did not permit holographic wills. Exhibit "A" was handwritten but did not comply with other legal requirements for wills at that time, such as numbering and signing each page. The Court ruled the validity of a will depends on the law at the time of execution, not later laws. Applying the law in force in 1923, Exhibit "A" was not a valid will and denying probate did not invalidate vested inheritance rights that accrued at Abadia
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IN RE: WILL of REVEREND ABADIA
Arts. 17, 810, 815-819, NCC; Law Governing Form
IN RE: WILL and TESTAMENT of REVEREND SANCHO ABADIA v. MIGUEL ABADIA ET AL. GR NO. L-7188, August 9, 1954, Montemayor, J.
The validity of a will is to be judged not by the law enforce at the time of the testator’s death or at the time the supposed will is presented in court for probate or when the petition was decided by the court but at the time the instrument was executed.
FACTS: On 06 September 1923, Father Sancho Abadia executed a document
purporting to be his Last Will and Testament marked as Exhibit “A”. He was a resident of the City of Cebu when he died on 14 January 1943 and left several properties estimated at P8,000. Andres Enriquez, one of the legatees of the will, filed a petition for its probate in the Court of First Instance of Cebu. Some cousins and nephews who would inherit the estate of the deceased if he left no will, filed opposition.
During the hearing, one of the attesting witnesses testified without contradiction that Father Abadia wrote out in longhand the will in Spanish which the testator spoke and understood. That he signed on the left hand margin of the front page of each of the three folios or sheets of which the document is composed and numbered the same with Arabic numerals and finally signed his name at the end of his writing at the last page, all this, in the presence of the three attesting witnesses after telling that it was his last will and that the said three witnesses signed their names on the last page after the attestation clause in his presence and in the presence of each other.
The learned trial court found and declared Exhibit “A” to be a holographic will; that it was the handwriting of the testator; and that although at the time it was executed and at the time of the testator’s death, holographic wills were not permitted by law, the trial court by order admitted to probate said will as the Last Will and Testament of Father Sancho Abadia.
According to the lower court, at the time of the hearing and when the case was to be decided, the new Civil Code was already in force. This Code permitted the execution of holographic wills under a liberal view and to carry out the intention of the testator which the court said was the controlling factor and may override any defect in form. The oppositors appealed this decision before the SC.
ISSUE: Whether or not the New Civil Code (R.A. No. 386) may govern Exhibit “A”
RULING: NO, The Court denied probate of Exhibit “A.”
Art. 795 of the New Civil Code expressly provides: “The validity of a will as to its form depends upon the observance of the law in force at the time it is made.” This is but an expression or statement of the weight of authority to the affect that the validity of a will is to be judged not by the law enforce at the time of the testator’s death or at the time the supposed will is presented in court for probate or when the petition was decided by the IN RE: WILL of REVEREND ABADIA Arts. 17, 810, 815-819, NCC; Law Governing Form court but at the time the instrument was executed. This ruling has been laid down by the Court in the case of In re Will of Riosa (39 Phil. 23).
It is a fact that at the time Exhibit “A” was executed in 1923 and at the time that Father Abadia died in 1943, holographic wills were not permitted. The law at the time imposed certain requirements for the execution of wills such as numbering correlatively each page (not folio or sheet) in letters and signing on the left margin by the testator and by the three attesting witnesses, requirements which were not complied with in Exhibit ‘A” because the back pages of the first two folios of the will were not signed by any one, not even by the testator and were not numbered, and as to the three front pages, they were signed only by the testator.
ADDN. NOTES: As to the view that the intention of the testator should be the ruling and controlling factor SC: One should not forget that from the day of the death of the testator, if he leaves a will, the title of the legatees and devisees under it becomes a vested right, protected under the due process clause of the constitution against a subsequent change in the statute adding new legal requirements of execution of wills which would invalidate such a will.
By parity of reasoning, when one executes a will which is invalid for failure to observe and follow the legal requirements at the time of its execution then upon his death he should be regarded and declared as having died intestate, and his heirs will then inherit by intestate succession, and no subsequent law with more liberal requirements or which dispenses with such requirements as to execution should be allowed to validate a defective will and thereby divest the heirs of their vested rights in the estate by intestate succession. The general rule is that the Legislature cannot validate void wills.
