[ G.R. No. 6285. February 15, 1912 ] 21 Phil. 461
[ G.R. No. 6285. February 15, 1912 ]
PEDRO BARUT, PETITIONER AND APPELLANT, VS. FAUSTINO CABACUNGAN ET AL., OPPONENTS AND APPELLEES. D E C I S I O N
MORELAND, J.:
This case is closely connected with the case of Faustino Cabacungan vs. Pedro Barut and another, No. 6284,[1] just decided by this court, wherein there was an application for the probate of an alleged last will and testament of the same person the probate of whose will is involved in this suit.
This appeal arises out of an application on the part of Pedro Barut to probate the last will and testament of Maria Salomon, deceased. It is alleged in the petition for probate that Maria Salomon died on the 7th day of November, 1908, in the pueblo of Sinait, Ilocos Sur, leaving a last will and testament bearing date March 2, 1907. Severo Agayan, Timotea Inoselda, Catalino Ragasa, and A. M. Jimenez are alleged to have been witnesses to the execution thereof. By the terms of said will Pedro Barut received the larger part of decedent’s property.
The original will appears on page 3 of the record and is in the Ilocano dialect. Its translation into Spanish appears at page 11. After disposing of her property the testatrix revoked all former wills by her made. She also stated in said will that being unable to read or write, the same had been read to her by Ciriaco Concepcion and Timotea Inoselda and that she had instructed Severo Agayan to sign her name to it as testatrix.
The probate of the will was contested and opposed by a number of the relatives of the deceased on various grounds, among them that a later will had been executed by the deceased. The will referred to as being a later will is the one involved in case No. 6284 already referred to. Proceedings for the probate of this later will were pending at the time. The evidence of the proponents and of the opponents was taken by the court in both cases for the purpose of considering them together.
In the case before us the learned probate court found that the will was not entitled to probate upon the sole ground that the handwriting of the person who it is alleged signed the name of the testatrix to the will for and on her behalf looked more like the handwriting of one of the other witnesses to the will than that of the person whose handwriting it was alleged to be. We do not believe that the mere dissimilarity in writing thus mentioned by the court is sufficient to overcome the uncontradicted testimony of all the witnesses to the will that the signature of the testatrix was written by Severo Agayan at her request and in her presence and in the presence of all of the witnesses to the will. It is immaterial who writes the name of the testatrix provided it is written at her request and in her presence and in the presence of all the witnesses to the execution of the will.
The court seems, by inference at least, to have had in mind that under the law relating to the execution of a will it is necessary that the person who signs the name of the testatrix must afterwards sign his own name; and that, in view of the fact that, in the case at bar, the name signed below that of the testatrix as the person who signed her name, being, from its appearance, not the same handwriting as that constituting the name of the testatrix, the will is accordingly invalid, such fact indicating that the person who signed the name of the testatrix failed to sign his own. We do not believe that this contention can be sustained. Section 618 of the Code of Civil Procedure reads as follows:
“No will, except as provided in the preceding section, shall be valid to pass any estate, real or personal, nor charge or affect the same, unless it be in writing and signed by the testator, or by the testator’s name written by some other person in his presence, and by his express direction, and attested and subscribed by three or more credible witnesses in the presence of the testator and of each other. * * *”
This is the important part of the section under the terms of which the court holds that the person who signs the name of the testator for him must also sign his own name. The remainder of the section reads:
“The attestation shall state the fact that the testator signed the will, or caused it to be signed by some other person, at his express direction, in the presence of three witnesses, and that they attested and subscribed it in his presence and in the presence of each other. But the absence of such form of attestation shall not render the will invalid if it is proven that the will was in fact signed and attested as in this section provided.”
From these provisions it is entirely clear that, with respect to the validity of the will, it is unimportant whether the person who writes the name of the testatrix signs his own or not. The important thing is that it clearly appears that the name of the testatrix was signed at her express direction in the presence of three witnesses and that they attested and subscribed it in her presence and in the presence of each other. That is all the statute requires. It may be wise as a practical matter that the one who signs the testator’s name signs also his own; but that is not essential to the validity of the will. Whether one person or another signed the name of the testatrix in this case is absolutely unimportant so far as the validity of her will is concerned. The plain wording of the statute shows that the requirement laid down by the trial court, if it did lay it down, is absolutely unnecessary under the law; and the reasons underlying the provisions of the statute relating to the execution of wills do not in any sense require such a provision. From the standpoint of language it is an impossibility to draw from the words of the law the inference that the person who signs the name of the testator must sign his own name also. The law requires only three witnesses to a will, not four.
Nor is such requirement found in any other branch of the law. The name of a person who is unable to write may be signed by another by express direction to any instrument known to the law. There is no necessity whatever, so far as the validity of the instrument is concerned, for the person who writes the name of the principal in the document to sign his own name also. As a matter of policy it may be wise that he do so inasmuch as it would give such intimation as would enable a person proving the document to demonstrate more readily the execution by the principal. But as a matter of essential validity of the document, it is unnecessary. The main thing to be established in the execution of the will is the signature of the testator. If that signature is proved, whether it be written by himself or by another at his request, it is none the less valid, and the fact of such signature can be proved as perfectly and as completely when the person signing for the principal omits to sign his own name as it can when he actually signs. To hold a will invalid for the lack of the signature of the person signing the name of the principal is, in the particular case, a complete abrogation of the law of wills, as it rejects and destroys a will which the statute expressly declares is valid.
There have been cited three cases which it is alleged are in opposition to the doctrine which we have herein laid down. They are Ex parte Santiago (4 Phil. Rep., 692), Ex parte Arcenas (4 Phil. Rep., 700), and Guison vs. Concepcion (5 Phil. Rep., 551). Not one of these cases is in point. The headnote in the case last above stated gives an indication of what all of the cases are and the question involved in each one of them. It says:
“The testatrix was not able to sign her name to the will, and she requested another person to sign it for her. Instead of writing her name he wrote his own upon the will. Held, That the will was not duly executed.”
All of the above cases are precisely of this character. Every one of them was a case in which the person who signed the will for the testator wrote his own name to the will instead of ‘writing that of the testator, so that the testator’s name nowhere appeared attached to the will as the one who executed it. The case of Ex parte Arcenas contains the following paragraph:
“Where a testator does not know how, or is unable for any reason, to sign the will himself, it shall be signed in the following manner: ‘John Doe, by the testator, Richard Roe;’ or in this form: ‘By the testator. John Doe, Richard Roe.’ All this must be written by the witness signing at the request of the testator.”
The only question for decision in that case, as we have before stated, was presented by the fact that the person who was authorized to sign the name of the testator to the will actually failed to sign such name but instead signed his own thereto. The decision in that case related only to that question.
Aside from the presentation of an alleged subsequent will the contestants in this case have set forth no reason whatever why the will involved in the present litigation should not be probated. The due and legal execution of the will by the testatrix is clearly established by the proofs in this case. Upon the facts, therefore, the will must be probated. As to the defense of a subsequent will, that is resolved in case No. 6284 of which we have already spoken. We there held that said later will was not the will of the deceased.
The judgment of the probate court must be and is hereby reversed and that court is directed to enter an order in the usual form probating the will involved in this litigation and to proceed with such probate in accordance with law.
Arellano, C. J., Mapa and Carson, JJ., concur.