Article 805-806

Art. 804. Every will must be in writing and executed in a language or dialect known to the
testator. (n)
Art. 805. Every will, other than a holographic will, must be subscribed at the end thereof
by the testator himself 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 one another.

IN THE MATTER OF THE TESTATE ESTATE OF THE

LATE JOSEFA VILLACORTE. 
CELSO ICASIANO, petitioner-appellee, 
vs.
NATIVIDAD ICASIANO and ENRIQUE
ICASIANO, oppositors-appellants.
G.R. No. L-18979             June 30, 1964
REYES, J.B.L., J.:
DOCTRINE: The law should not be so strictly and literally interpreted as to penalize
the testatrix on account of the inadvertence of a single witness over whose conduct she
had no control, where the purpose of the law to guarantee the identity of the testament
and its component pages is sufficiently attained, no intentional or deliberate deviation
existed, and the evidence on record attests to the full observance of the statutory
requisites.

FACTS:
A petition for the allowance and admission to probate of the original, Exhibit "A" as the
alleged will of Josefa Villacorte, deceased, and for the appointment of petitioner Celso
Icasiano as executor thereof was filed. Natividad and Enrique Icasiano, a daughter and
son of the testatrix, filed their opposition thereto.
On March 19, 1959, the petitioner proponent commenced the introduction of his
evidence; but on June 1, 1959, he filed a motion for the admission of an amended and
supplemental petition, alleging that the decedent left a will executed in duplicate with all
the legal requirements, and that he was, on that date, submitting the signed duplicate
(Exhibit "A-1"), which he allegedly found only on or about May 26, 1959.
The records show that the original of the will, which was surrendered simultaneously
with the filing of the petition and marked as Exhibit "A" consists of five pages, and while
signed at the end and in every page, it does not contain the signature of one of the
attesting witnesses, Atty. Jose V. Natividad, on page three (3) thereof; but the duplicate
copy attached to the amended and supplemental petition and marked as Exhibit "A-1" is
signed by the testatrix and her three attesting witnesses in each and every page.

ISSUE: Did the failure of one of the witnesses to sign a page of the will render the will
void?

RULING: NO
The records show that the original of the will, which was surrendered simultaneously
with the filing of the petition and marked as Exhibit "A" consists of five pages, and while
signed at the end and in every page, it does not contain the signature of one of the
attesting witnesses, Atty. Jose V. Natividad, on page three (3) thereof; but the duplicate
copy attached to the amended and supplemental petition and marked as Exhibit "A-1" is
signed by the testatrix and her three attesting witnesses in each and every page.
Witness Natividad who testified on his failure to sign page three (3) of the original,
admits that he may have lifted two pages instead of one when he signed the same, but
affirmed that page three (3) was signed in his presence.
We have examined the record and are satisfied, as the trial court was, that the testatrix
signed both original and duplicate copies (Exhibits "A" and "A-1", respectively) of the will
spontaneously, on the same in the presence of the three attesting witnesses, the notary
public who acknowledged the will; and Atty. Samson, who actually prepared the
documents; that the will and its duplicate were executed in Tagalog, a language known
to and spoken by both the testator and the witnesses, and read to and by the testatrix
and Atty. Fermin Samson, together before they were actually signed; that the attestation
clause is also in a language known to and spoken by the testatrix and the witnesses.
We hold that the inadvertent failure of one witness to affix his signature to one page of a
testament, due to the simultaneous lifting of two pages in the course of signing, is not
per se sufficient to justify denial of probate. Impossibility of substitution of this page is
assured not only the fact that the testatrix and two other witnesses did sign the defective
page, but also by its bearing the coincident imprint of the seal of the notary public before
whom the testament was ratified by testatrix and all three witnesses. The law should not
be so strictly and literally interpreted as to penalize the testatrix on account of the
inadvertence of a single witness over whose conduct she had no control, where the
purpose of the law to guarantee the identity of the testament and its component pages
is sufficiently attained, no intentional or deliberate deviation existed, and the evidence
on record attests to the full observance of the statutory requisites.
That the failure of witness Natividad to sign page three (3) was entirely through pure
oversight is shown by his own testimony as well as by the duplicate copy of the will,
which bears a complete set of signatures in every page. The text of the attestation
clause and the acknowledgment before the Notary Public likewise evidence that no one
was aware of the defect at the time.
 Testate Estate of Florencia R. Mateo. PERFECTO
GABRIEL, petitioner-appellee, 
vs.
RITA R. MATEO, ET AL., opponents-appellants.
G.R. No. L-26545 December 16, 1927
AVANCEÑA, C. J.:
DOCTRINE: Over the testimony of experts, we have the categorical and positive
declaration of veracious witnesses who affirm that these signatures were written by the
testatrix herself.

FACTS:
The probate court allowed the will of Florencia Mateo composed of two used sheets.
The will appears to be signed by the testatrix and three witnesses on the left margin of
each of the sheets, by the testatrix alone at the bottom, and by the three witnesses after
the attestation clause.
The three attesting witnesses to this will, testifying in this case, declared that the
signature of the testatrix were written in their presence and that they signed their names
in the presence of the testatrix and of each other.
The testatrix from girlhood knew how to sign her name and did so with her right hand;
but as the right side of her body later became paralyzed, she learned to sign with her
left hand and for many years thereafter, up to the time of her death, she used to sign
with that hand. The opponents allege that Florencia Mateo did not sign this will.

ISSUE: Was the signature of Florencia Mateo genuine?

RULING: Yes.
If, as the opposition alleges, the testatrix's signature is not genuine and was placed
there by another person, it is strange that the latter should have done so in such a way
as to write it above Gabriel's signature while following the horizontal line, when this
could have been avoided by simply putting it a little higher. And this may be attributed to
carelessness in the first case, but it cannot be so explained in the second.
At all events, even admitting that there is a certain question as to whether the attesting
witnesses signed before or after the testatrix, or whether or not they signed with the
same pen and ink, these are details of such trivial importance, considering that this will
was signed two years before the date on which these witnesses gave their testimony,
that it is not proper to set aside the will for this reason alone.
The attesting witnesses to this will, who testified also as witnesses at the trial of this
case, showed themselves to be intelligent and honest, one of them being a lawyer of
twelve year's practice, and there is no reason to reject their testimony, and to suppose
that they were untruthful in testifying, and that they falsified the will in question.
The opposition presented Doctor Banks as expert. He testified that the signatures of the
testatrix in the will are not genuine. The petitioner, on the other hand, presented another
expert, Pedro Serrano Laktao, who affirmed that these signatures are genuine. But,
over the testimony of these experts, we have the categorical and positive declaration of
veracious witnesses who affirm that these signatures were written by the testatrix
herself.
 RIZALINA GABRIEL GONZALES, petitioner, 
vs.
HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS and LUTGARDA
SANTIAGO, respondents.
G.R. No. L-37453 May 25, 1979
GUERRERO, J.:

DOCTRINE:
• The instrumental witnesses in Order to be competent must be shown to have the
qualifications under Article 820 of the Civil Code and none of the disqualifications under
Article 821 and for their testimony to be credible, that is worthy of belief and entitled to
credence, it is not mandatory that evidence be first established on record that the
witnesses have a good standing in the community or that they are honest and upright or
reputed to be trustworthy and reliable, for a person is presumed to be such unless the
contrary is established otherwise.
• The attestation clause which Matilde Orobia signed is the best evidence as to the
date of signing because it preserves in permanent form a recital of all the material facts
attending the execution of the will. This is the very purpose of the attestation clause
which is made for the purpose of preserving in permanent form a record of the facts
attending the execution of the will, so that in case of failure in the memory of the
subscribing witnesses, or other casualty they may still be proved.

FACTS:
Lutgarda Santiago filed a petition for the probate of a will of Isabel Gabriel and
designating Lutgarda as the principal beneficiary and executrix.
The will submitted for probate, Exhibit "F", which is typewritten and in Tagalog, appears
to have been executed in Manila on the 15th day of April, 1961, or barely two (2)
months prior to the death of Isabel Gabriel. It consists of five (5) pages, including the
pages whereon the attestation clause and the acknowledgment of the notary public
were written. The signatures of the deceased Isabel Gabriel appear at the end of the
will on page four and at the left margin of all the pages.
The petition was opposed by Rizalina Gabriel Gonzales. The Trial Court disallowed the
probate of the will. The Court of Appeals allowed the probate of the will. Hence this
petition.
ISSUE: Was the will executed and attested as required by law?
RULING: Yes
As to the credibility of the witnesses:
Rizalina argues that the requirement in Article 806, Civil Code, that the witnesses must
be credible is an absolute requirement which must be complied with before an alleged
last will and testament may be admitted to probate and that to be a credible witness,
there must be evidence on record that the witness has a good standing in his
community, or that he is honest and upright, or reputed to be trustworthy and reliable.
In probate proceedings, the instrumental witnesses are not character witnesses for they
merely attest the execution of a will or testament and affirm the formalities attendant to
said execution.
In the case at bar, the finding that each and everyone of the three instrumental
witnesses, namely, Matilde Orobia, Celso Gimpaya and Maria Gimpaya, are competent
and credible is satisfactorily supported by the evidence as found by the respondent
Court of Appeals.
Moreover, petitioner has not pointed to any disqualification of any of the said witnesses,
much less has it been shown that anyone of them is below 18 years of age, of unsound
mind, deaf or dumb, or cannot read or write.
In fine, We state the rule that the instrumental witnesses in Order to be competent must
be shown to have the qualifications under Article 820 of the Civil Code and none of the
disqualifications under Article 821 and for their testimony to be credible, that is worthy of
belief and entitled to credence, it is not mandatory that evidence be first established on
record that the witnesses have a good standing in the community or that they are
honest and upright or reputed to be trustworthy and reliable, for a person is presumed to
be such unless the contrary is established otherwise.
As to the capacity of the testator:
We nevertheless hold that the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeals that the
testatrix dictated her will without any note or memorandum appears to be fully
supported by the following facts or evidence appearing on record. Thus, Isabel Gabriel,
despite her age, was particularly active in her business affairs as she actively managed
the affairs of the movie business ISABELITA Theater, paying the aparatistas herself
until June 4, 1961, 3 days before her death. She was the widow of the late Eligio Naval,
former Governor of Rizal Province and acted as coadministratrix in the Intestate Estate
of her deceased husband Eligio Naval. The text of the win was in Tagalog, a dialect
known and understood by her and in the light of all the circumstances, We agree with
the respondent Court that the testatrix dictated her will without any note or
memorandum, a fact unanimously testified to by the three attesting witnesses and the
notary public himself.
In addition to the testimony of Matilde Orobia, Celso Gimpaya and Maria Gimpaya that
Matilde was present on April 15, 1961 and that she signed the attestation clause to the
will and on the left-hand margin of each of the pages of the will, the documentary
evidence which is the will itself, the attestation clause and the notarial acknowledgment
overwhelmingly and convincingly prove such fact that Matilde Orobia was present on
that day of April 15, 1961 and that she witnessed the will by signing her name thereon
and acknowledged the same before the notary public, Atty. Cipriano P. Paraiso. The
attestation clause which Matilde Orobia signed is the best evidence as to the date of
signing because it preserves in permanent form a recital of all the material facts
attending the execution of the will. This is the very purpose of the attestation clause
which is made for the purpose of preserving in permanent form a record of the facts
attending the execution of the will, so that in case of failure in the memory of the
subscribing witnesses, or other casualty they may still be proved.
Petitioner's exacerbation centers on the supposed incredibility of the testimonies of the
witnesses for the proponent of the will, their alleged evasions, inconsistencies and
contradictions. But in the case at bar, the three instrumental witnesses who constitute
the best evidence of the will making have testified in favor of the probate of the will. So
has the lawyer who prepared it, one learned in the law and long in the practice thereof,
who thereafter notarized it. All of them are disinterested witnesses who stand to receive
no benefit from the testament. The signatures of the witnesses and the testatrix have
been identified on the will and there is no claim whatsoever and by anyone, much less
the petitioner, that they were not genuine. In the last and final analysis, the herein
conflict is factual and we go back to the rule that the Supreme Court cannot review and
revise the findings of facts of the respondent Court of Appeals.
 In re will of Josefa Zalamea y Abella, deceased. 
PEDRO UNSON, petitioner-appellee, 
vs.
ANTONIO ABELLA, ET AL., opponents-appellants.
G.R. No. 17857             June 12, 1922
VILLAMOR, J.:
Doctrine: The object of the solemnities surrounding the execution of wills is to close
the door against bad faith and fraud, to avoid substitution of wills and testaments and to
guaranty their truth and authenticity. Therefore the laws on this subject should be
interpreted in such a way as to attain these primordial ends. But, on the other hand,
also one must not lose sight of the fact that it is not the object of the law to restrain and
curtail the exercise of the right to make a will. So when an interpretation whatsoever,
that adds nothing but demands more requisites entirely unnecessary, useless, and
frustrative of the testator's last will, must be disregarded.

Facts:
On July 19, 1918, Doña Josefa Zalamea y Abella executed her last will and testament
with an attached inventory of her properties, Exhibits A and A-1, in the presence of
three witnesses, who signed with her all the pages of said documents. The testatrix
died on the 6th of January, 1921, and, as the record shows, the executor appointed in
the will, Pedro Unson, filed an application for the probate of the will and the issuance of
the proper letters of administration in his favor.
To said application an opposition was presently by Antonio Abella, Ignacia Abella,
Avicencia Abella, and Santiago Vito, alleging that the supposed will of the deceased
Zalamea was not executed in conformity with the provinces of the law, inasmuch as it
was not paged correlatively in letters, nor was there any attestation clause in it, nor was
it signed by the testatrix and the witnesses in the presence of each other.

Issue: Was the will executed with all the solemnities required by law?
Ruling: Yes.
The appellants contend that the court below erred in admitting the will to probate
notwithstanding the omission of the proponent to produce one of the attesting
witnesses. But supposing that said witness, when cited, had testified adversely to the
application, this would not by itself have change the result reached by the court a quo,
for section 632 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that a will can be admitted to
probate, notwithstanding that one or more witnesses do not remember having attested
it, provided the court is satisfied upon the evidence adduced that the will has been
executed and signed in the manner prescribed by the law.
The last error assigned by the appellants is made to consist in the probate of the
inventory, Exhibit A-1, despite the fact that this exhibit has no attestation clause in it,
and its paging is made in Arabic numerals and not in letters.
In view of the fact that the inventory is referred to in the will as an integral part of it, we
find that the foregoing attestation clause is in compliance with section 1 of Act No. 2645,
which requires this solemnity for the validity of a will, and makes unnecessary any other
attestation clause at the end of the inventory.
As to the paging of the will in Arabic numerals, instead of in letters, we adhere to the
doctrine announced in the case of Aldaba vs. Roque (p. 378, ante), recently decided by
this court. In that case the validity of the will was assailed on the ground that its folios
were paged with the letters A, B, C, etc., instead of with the letters "one," two," "three,"
etc. It was held that this way of numbering the pages of a will is in compliance with the
spirit of the law, inasmuch as either one of these methods indicates the correlation of
the pages and serves to prevent the abstraction of any of them.
In other words the more or less degree of facility to imitate the writing of the letters A, B,
C, etc., does not make for the easiness to forge the signatures. And as in the present
case there exists the guaranty of the authenticity of the testament, consisting in the
signatures on the left margins of the testament and the paging thereof as declared in
the attestation clause, the holding of this court in Abangan vs. Abangan (40 Phil., 476),
might as well be repeated:
"The object of the solemnities surrounding the execution of wills is to close
the door against bad faith and fraud, to avoid substitution of wills and
testaments and to guaranty their truth and authenticity. Therefore the laws
on this subject should be interpreted in such a way as to attain these
primordial ends. But, on the other hand, also one must not lose sight of
the fact that it is not the object of the law to restrain and curtail the
exercise of the right to make a will. So when an interpretation whatsoever,
that adds nothing but demands more requisites entirely unnecessary,
useless, and frustrative of the testator's last will, must be disregarded."
The law provides that the numbering of the pages should be in letters placed on the
upper part of the sheet, but if the paging should be placed in the lower part, would the
testament be void for this sole reason? We believe not. The law also provides that the
testator and the witnesses must sign the left margin of each of the sheets of the
testament; but if they should sign on the right margin, would this fact also annul the
testament? Evidently not. This court has already held in Avera vs. Garcia and
Rodriguez (42 Phi., 145).
We do not desire to intimate that the numbering in letters is a requisite of no
importance. But since its principal object is to give the correlation of the pages, we hold
that his object may be attained by writing one, two, three, etc., as well as by writing A,
B, C, etc.
We see no reason why the same rule should not be applied where the paging is in
Arabic numerals, instead of in letters, as in the inventory in question. So that, adhering
to the view taken by this court in the case of Abangan vs. Abangan, and followed
in Aldava vs. Roque, with regard to the appreciation of the solemnities of a will, we find
that the judgement appealed from should be, as is hereby, affirmed with the costs
against the appellants.
 Probate of the late Rev. P. Eleuterio Pilapil. ADRIAN
MENDOZA, petitioner and appellee,
vs.
Pilapil CALIXTO AND OTHERS, opponents and
appellants.
G. R. No. L-47931 June 27, 1941
DIAZ, J.:

DOCTRINE: The paging in this case was a sufficient compliance with the law. It is
sufficient that the number of pages can be identified.

FACTS:
P. Eleuterio Pilapil was a parish priest of Mualboal, Cebu where he died. No will was
presented after his death until early February 1939 by his brother Calixto Pilapil. March
4, 1939, the appellee prayed for the the legalization as a testament of the late P.
Eleuterio Pilapil, of Exhibit A and its duplicate to the coal of Exhibit C.
The two documents, exhibits A and C, consist of three pages, and in the left margin of
each of the first two , are the firms that are at the end of the main body of these
documents and their attestation clause and that are, according to the evidence,
signatures of the late P. Eleuterio Pilapil, and witnesses Wenceslas Pilapil, Marcelo
Pilapil and Eugene K. Pilapil.
The probate of the will is opposed on the grounds that the said will was not properly
paged such that at the bottom of the pages (1) and (2) are respectively the notes: "Go
to 2. Pages", "go to 3. Pages".

ISSUE: Is the will valid?

RULING: Yes, the will is valid and must be admitted for probate.
The purpose of the law in establishing the formalities is undoubtedly to ensure and
guarantee their authenticity against bad faith and fraud. The paging in this case was a
sufficient compliance with the law. It is sufficient that the number of pages can be
identified. Indeed, the will in this case, as stated in the 3rd page, contains no more, no
less than 2 articles, containing 16 dispositions and written in 3 pages.
We maintain the view that there should be required strict compliance with the
substantive requirements of the will, to ensure its authenticity, but at the same time we
should not take into account the defects that could thwart the will of the testator.
(Rodriguez against Yap, supra.)