ABANGAN V ABANGAN

FACTS:

The Court of First Instance of Cebu admitted to probate Ana Abangan's will
executed July, 1916. From this decision the opponent's appealed
Said document, duly probated as Ana Abangan's will, consists of two sheets, the
first of which contains all of the disposition of the testatrix, duly signed at the
bottom by Martin Montalban (in the name and under the direction of the
testatrix) and by three witnesses.
The following sheet contains only the attestation clause duly signed at the
bottom by the three instrumental witnesses. Neither of these sheets is signed on
the left margin by the testatrix and the three witnesses, nor numbered by
letters; and these omissions, according to appellants' contention, are defects
whereby the probate of the will should have been denied.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the will was validly probated?

RULING:
YES

In a will consisting of two sheets the first of which contains all the testamentary
dispositions and is signed at the bottom by the testator and three witnesses and
the second contains only the attestation clause and is signed also at the bottom
by the three witnesses, it is not necessary that both sheets be further signed on
their margins by the testator and the witnesses, or be paged.
The circumstance appearing in the will itself that same was executed in the city
of Cebu and in the dialect of this locality where the testatrix was a neighbor is
enough, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, to presume that she knew
this dialect in which this will is written.
In requiring that each and every page of a will must be numbered correlatively in
letters placed on the upper part of the sheet, it is likewise clear that the object of
Act No. 2645 is to know whether any sheet of the will has been removed. But,
when all the dispositive parts of a will are written on one sheet only, the object
of the statute disappears because the removal of this single sheet, although
unnumbered, cannot be hidden.
Wherefore, without considering whether or not this clause is an essential part of
the will, the court held that in the one accompanying the will in question, the
signatures of the testatrix and of the three witnesses on the margin and the
numbering of the pages of the sheet are formalities not required by the statute.
Moreover, referring specially to the signature of the testatrix, the court added
that same is not necessary in the attestation clause because this, as its name

implies, appertains only to the witnesses and not to the testator since the latter
does not attest, but executes, the will.
The judgment appealed from is affirmed