Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. 84240 March 25, 1992

OLIVIA S. PASCUAL and HERMES S. PASCUAL, petitioners,
vs.
ESPERANZA C. PASCUAL-BAUTISTA, MANUEL C. PASCUAL, JOSE C. PASCUAL, SUSANA C.
PASCUAL-BAUTISTA, ERLINDA C. PASCUAL, WENCESLAO C. PASCUAL, JR., INTESTATE
ESTATE OF ELEUTERIO T. PASCUAL, AVELINO PASCUAL, ISOCELES PASCUAL, LEIDA
PASCUAL-MARTINES, VIRGINIA PASCUAL-NER, NONA PASCUAL-FERNANDO, OCTAVIO
PASCUAL, GERANAIA PASCUAL-DUBERT, and THE HONORABLE PRESIDING JUDGE
MANUEL S. PADOLINA of Br. 162, RTC, Pasig, Metro Manila, respondents.

PARAS, J.:
This is a petition for review on certiorari which seeks to reverse and set aside: (a) the decision of the
Court of Appeals 1 dated April 29, 1988 in CA-G.R. SP. No. 14010 entitled "Olivia S. Pascual and Hermes
S. Pascual v. Esperanza C. Pascual-Bautista, Manuel C. Pascual, Jose Pascual, Susana C. PascualBautista, Erlinda C. Pascual, Wenceslao C. Pascual, Jr., et al." which dismissed the petition and in effect
affirmed the decision of the trial court and (b) the resolution dated July 14, 1988 denying petitioners'
motion for reconsideration.
The undisputed facts of the case are as follows:
Petitioners Olivia and Hermes both surnamed Pascual are the acknowledged natural children of the
late Eligio Pascual, the latter being the full blood brother of the decedent Don Andres Pascual (Rollo,
petition, p. 17).
Don Andres Pascual died intestate on October 12, 1973 without any issue, legitimate, acknowledged
natural, adopted or spurious children and was survived by the following:
(a) Adela Soldevilla de Pascual, surviving spouses;
(b) Children of Wenceslao Pascual, Sr., a brother of the full blood of the deceased, to
wit:
Esperanza C. Pascual-Bautista
Manuel C. Pascual
Jose C. Pascual
Susana C. Pascual-Bautista
Erlinda C. Pascual
Wenceslao C. Pascual, Jr.
(c) Children of Pedro-Bautista, brother of the half blood of the deceased, to wit:
Avelino Pascual
Isoceles Pascual
Loida Pascual-Martinez
Virginia Pascual-Ner
Nona Pascual-Fernando

Octavio Pascual
Geranaia Pascual-Dubert;
(d) Acknowledged natural children of Eligio Pascual, brother of the full blood of the
deceased, to wit:
Olivia S. Pascual
Hermes S. Pascual
(e) Intestate of Eleuterio T. Pascual, a brother of the half blood of the deceased and
represented by the following:
Dominga M. Pascual
Mamerta P. Fugoso
Abraham S. Sarmiento, III
Regina Sarmiento-Macaibay
Eleuterio P. Sarmiento
Domiga P. San Diego
Nelia P. Marquez
Silvestre M. Pascual
Eleuterio M. Pascual
(Rollo, pp. 46-47)
Adela Soldevilla de Pascual, the surviving spouse of the late Don Andres Pascual, filed with the
Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 162 (CFI of Rizal, Br. XXIII), a Special Proceeding, Case No.
7554, for administration of the intestate estate of her late husband (Rollo, p. 47).
On December 18, 1973, Adela soldevilla de Pascual filed a Supplemental Petition to the Petition for
letters of Administration, where she expressly stated that Olivia Pascual and Hermes Pascual, are
among the heirs of Don Andres Pascual (Rollo, pp. 99-101).
On February 27, 1974, again Adela Soldevilla de Pascual executed an affidavit, to the effect that of
her own knowledge, Eligio Pascual is the younger full blood brother of her late husband Don Andres
Pascual, to belie the statement made by the oppositors, that they were are not among the known
heirs of the deceased Don Andres Pascual (Rollo, p. 102).
On October 16, 1985, all the above-mentioned heirs entered into a COMPROMISE AGREEMENT,
over the vehement objections of the herein petitioners Olivia S. Pascual and Hermes S. Pascual,
although paragraph V of such compromise agreement provides, to wit:
This Compromise Agreement shall be without prejudice to the continuation of the
above-entitled proceedings until the final determination thereof by the court, or by
another compromise agreement, as regards the claims of Olivia Pascual and Hermes
Pascual as legal heirs of the deceased, Don Andres Pascual. (Rollo, p. 108)
The said Compromise Agreement had been entered into despite the Manifestation/Motion of the
petitioners Olivia Pascual and Hermes Pascual, manifesting their hereditary rights in the intestate
estate of Don Andres Pascual, their uncle (Rollo, pp. 111-112).
On September 30, 1987, petitioners filed their Motion to Reiterate Hereditary Rights (Rollo, pp. 113114) and the Memorandum in Support of Motion to reiterate Hereditary Rights (Rollo, pp. 116-130).
On December 18, 1987, the Regional Trial Court, presided over by Judge Manuel S. Padolina issued
an order, the dispositive portion of which reads:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, this Court resolves as it is hereby resolved to
Deny this motion reiterating the hereditary rights of Olivia and Hermes Pascual
(Rollo, p. 136).

On January 13, 1988, petitioners filed their motion for reconsideration (Rollo, pp. 515-526). and such
motion was denied.
Petitioner appealed their case to the Court of Appeals docketed as CA-G.R. No. 14010 (Rollo, p.
15.).
On Aril 29, 1988, the respondent Court of Appeals rendered its decision the decision the dispositive
part of which reads:
WHEREFORE, the petition is DISMISSED. Costs against the petitioners.
SO ORDERED. (Rollo, p. 38)
Petitioners filed their motion for reconsideration of said decision and on July 14, 1988, the Court of
Appeals issued its resolution denying the motion for reconsideration (Rollo, p. 42).
Hence, this petition for review on certiorari.
After all the requirements had been filed, the case was given due course.
The main issue to be resolved in the case at bar is whether or not Article 992 of the Civil Code of the
Philippines, can be interpreted to exclude recognized natural children from the inheritance of the
deceased.
Petitioners contend that they do not fall squarely within the purview of Article 992 of the Civil Code of
the Philippines, can be interpreted to exclude recognized and of the doctrine laid down in Diaz v.
IAC (150 SCRA 645 [1987]) because being acknowledged natural children, their illegitimacy is not
due to the subsistence of a prior marriage when such children were under conception (Rollo, p. 418).
Otherwise stated they say the term "illegitimate" children as provided in Article 992 must be strictly
construed to refer only to spurious children (Rollo, p. 419).
On the other hand, private respondents maintain that herein petitioners are within the prohibition of
Article 992 of the Civil Code and the doctrine laid down in Diaz v. IAC is applicable to them.
The petition is devoid of merit.
Pertinent thereto, Article 992 of the civil Code, provides:
An illegitimate child has no right to inherit ab intestato from the legitimate children
and relatives of his father or mother; nor shall such children or relatives inherit in the
same manner from the illegitimate child.
The issue in the case at bar, had already been laid to rest in Diaz v. IAC, supra, where this Court
ruled that:
Article 992 of the Civil Code provides a barrier or iron curtain in that it prohibits
absolutely a successionab intestato between the illegitimate child and the legitimate
children and relatives of the father or mother of said legitimate child. They may have
a natural tie of blood, but this is not recognized by law for the purposes of Article 992.
Between the legitimate family and illegitimate family there is presumed to be an
intervening antagonism and incompatibility. The illegitimate child is disgracefully
looked down upon by the legitimate family; the family is in turn hated by the
illegitimate child; the latter considers the privileged condition of the former, and the
resources of which it is thereby deprived; the former, in turn, sees in the illegitimate
child nothing but the product of sin, palpable evidence of a blemish broken in life; the
law does no more than recognize this truth, by avoiding further grounds of
resentment.

Eligio Pascual is a legitimate child but petitioners are his illegitimate children.
Applying the above doctrine to the case at bar, respondent IAC did not err in holding that petitioners
herein cannot represent their father Eligio Pascual in the succession of the latter to the intestate
estate of the decedent Andres Pascual, full blood brother of their father.
In their memorandum, petitioners insisted that Article 992 in the light of Articles 902 and 989 of the
Civil Code allows them (Olivia and Hermes) to represent Eligio Pascual in the intestate estate of Don
Andres Pascual.
On motion for reconsideration of the decision in Diaz v. IAC, this Court further elucidated the
successional rights of illegitimate children, which squarely answers the questions raised by the
petitioner on this point.
The Court held:
Article 902, 989, and 990 clearly speaks of successional rights of illegitimate
children, which rights are transmitted to their descendants upon their death. The
descendants (of these illegitimate children) who may inherit by virtue of the right of
representation may be legitimate or illegitimate. In whatever manner, one should not
overlook the fact that the persons to be represented are themselves illegitimate. The
three named provisions are very clear on this matter. The right of representation is
not available to illegitimate descendants of legitimate children in the inheritance of a
legitimate grandparent. It may be argued, as done by petitioners, that the illegitimate
descendant of a legitimate child is entitled to represent by virtue of the provisions of
Article 982, which provides that "the grandchildren and other descendants shall
inherit by right of representation." Such a conclusion is erroneous. It would allow
intestate succession by an illegitimate child to the legitimate parent of his father or
mother, a situation which would set at naught the provisions of Article 992. Article 982
is inapplicable to the instant case because Article 992 prohibits absolutely a
succession ab intestato between the illegitimate child and the legitimate children and
relatives of the father or mother. It may not be amiss to state Article 982 is the
general rule and Article 992 the exception.
The rules laid down in Article 982 that "grandchildren and other descendants shall
inherit by right of representation" and in Article 902 that the rights of illegitimate
children . . . are transmitted upon their death to their descendants, whether legitimate
or illegitimate are subject to the limitation prescribed by Article 992 to the end that an
illegitimate child has no right to inherit ab intestato from the legitimate children and
relatives of his father or mother. (Amicus Curiae's Opinion by former Justice Minister
Ricardo C. Puno, p. 12). Diaz v. Intermediate Appellate Court, 182 SCRA 427; pp.
431-432; [1990]).
Verily, the interpretation of the law desired by the petitioner may be more humane but it is also an
elementary rule in statutory construction that when the words and phrases of the statute are clear
and unequivocal, their meaning must be determined from the language employed and the statute
must be taken to mean exactly what is says. (Baranda v. Gustilo, 165 SCRA 758-759 [1988]). The
courts may not speculate as to the probable intent of the legislature apart from the words (Aparri v.
CA, 127 SCRA 233 [1984]). When the law is clear, it is not susceptible of interpretation. It must be
applied regardless of who may be affected, even if the law may be harsh or onerous. (Nepomuceno,
et al. v. FC, 110 Phil. 42). And even granting that exceptions may be conceded, the same as a
general rule, should be strictly but reasonably construed; they extend only so far as their language
fairly warrants, and all doubts should be resolved in favor of the general provisions rather than the
exception. Thus, where a general rule is established by statute, the court will not curtail the former
nor add to the latter by implication (Samson v. C.A., 145 SCRA 654 [1986]).
Clearly the term "illegitimate" refers to both natural and spurious.

Finally under Article 176 of the Family Code, all illegitimate children are generally placed under one
category, which undoubtedly settles the issue as to whether or not acknowledged natural children
should be treated differently, in the negative.
It may be said that the law may be harsh but that is the law (DURA LEX SED LEX).
PREMISES CONSIDERED, the petition is DISMISSED for lack of merit and the assailed decision of
the respondent Court of Appeals dated April 29, 1988 is AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
FIRST DIVISION
G.R. No. 152658. July 29, 2005
LILY ELIZABETH BRAVO-GUERRERO, BEN MAURICIO P. BRAVO,1 ROLAND P. BRAVO, JR.,
OFELIA BRAVO-QUIESTAS, HEIRS OF CORPUSINIA BRAVO-NIOR namely: GERSON U. NIOR,
MARK GERRY B. NIOR, CLIFF RICHARD B. NIOR, BRYAN B. NIOR, WIDMARK B. NIOR,
SHERRY ANNE B. NIOR, represented by LILY ELIZABETH BRAVO-GUERRERO as their
attorney-in-fact, and HONORABLE FLORENTINO A. TUASON, JR., Presiding Judge, Regional
Trial Court, Branch 139, Makati City, Petitioners,
vs.
EDWARD P. BRAVO, represented by his attorney-in-fact FATIMA C. BRAVO, respondent, and
DAVID B. DIAZ, JR., intervenor-respondent.
DECISION
CARPIO, J.:
The Case
Before the Court is a petition for review2 assailing the Decision3 of 21 December 2001 of the Court of
Appeals in CA-G.R. CV No. 67794. The Court of Appeals reversed the Decision 4 of 11 May 2000 of
the Regional Trial Court of Makati, Branch No. 139, in Civil Case No. 97-1379 denying respondents
prayer to partition the subject properties.
Antecedent Facts
Spouses Mauricio Bravo ("Mauricio") and Simona5 Andaya Bravo ("Simona") owned two parcels of
land ("Properties") measuring 287 and 291 square meters and located along Evangelista Street,
Makati City, Metro Manila. The Properties are registered under TCT Nos. 58999 and 59000 issued
by the Register of Deeds of Rizal on 23 May 1958. The Properties contain a large residential
dwelling, a smaller house and other improvements.
Mauricio and Simona had three children - Roland, Cesar and Lily, all surnamed Bravo. Cesar died
without issue. Lily Bravo married David Diaz, and had a son, David B. Diaz, Jr. ("David Jr."). Roland
had six children, namely, Lily Elizabeth Bravo-Guerrero ("Elizabeth"), Edward Bravo ("Edward"),
Roland Bravo, Jr. ("Roland Jr."), Senia Bravo, Benjamin Mauricio Bravo, and their half-sister, Ofelia
Bravo ("Ofelia").
Simona executed a General Power of Attorney ("GPA") on 17 June 1966 appointing Mauricio as her
attorney-in-fact. In the GPA, Simona authorized Mauricio to "mortgage or otherwise hypothecate,
sell, assign and dispose of any and all of my property, real, personal or mixed, of any kind
whatsoever and wheresoever situated, or any interest therein xxx."6 Mauricio subsequently
mortgaged the Properties to the Philippine National Bank (PNB) and Development Bank of the
Philippines (DBP) for P10,000 and P5,000, respectively.7
On 25 October 1970, Mauricio executed a Deed of Sale with Assumption of Real Estate Mortgage
("Deed of Sale") conveying the Properties to "Roland A. Bravo, Ofelia A. Bravo and Elizabeth
Bravo"8 ("vendees"). The sale was conditioned on the payment of P1,000 and on the assumption by
the vendees of the PNB and DBP mortgages over the Properties.
As certified by the Clerk of Court of the Regional Trial Court of Manila, the Deed of Sale was
notarized by Atty. Victorio Q. Guzman on 28 October 1970 and entered in his Notarial
Register.9 However, the Deed of Sale was not annotated on TCT Nos. 58999 and 59000. Neither
was it presented to PNB and DBP. The mortage loans and the receipts for loan payments issued by

PNB and DBP continued to be in Mauricios name even after his death on 20 November 1973.
Simona died in 1977.
On 23 June 1997, Edward, represented by his wife, Fatima Bravo, filed an action for the judicial
partition of the Properties. Edward claimed that he and the other grandchildren of Mauricio and
Simona are co-owners of the Properties by succession. Despite this, petitioners refused to share
with him the possession and rental income of the Properties. Edward later amended his complaint to
include a prayer to annul the Deed of Sale, which he claimed was merely simulated to prejudice the
other heirs.
In 1999, David Jr., whose parents died in 1944 and who was subsequently raised by Simona, moved
to intervene in the case. David Jr. filed a complaint-in-intervention impugning the validity of the Deed
of Sale and praying for the partition of the Properties among the surviving heirs of Mauricio and
Simona. The trial court allowed the intervention in its Order dated 5 May 1999. 10
The Ruling of the Trial Court
The trial court upheld Mauricios sale of the Properties to the vendees. The trial court ruled that the
sale did not prejudice the compulsory heirs, as the Properties were conveyed for valuable
consideration. The trial court also noted that the Deed of Sale was duly notarized and was in
existence for many years without question about its validity.
The dispositive portion of the trial courts Decision of 11 May 2000 reads:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the Court hereby DENIES the JUDICIAL PARTITION of the
properties covered by TCT Nos. 58999 and 59000 registered with the Office of the Register of
Deeds of Rizal.
SO ORDERED.11
Dissatisfied, Edward and David Jr. ("respondents") filed a joint appeal to the Court of Appeals.
The Ruling of the Court of Appeals
Citing Article 166 of the Civil Code ("Article 166"), the Court of Appeals declared the Deed of Sale
void for lack of Simonas consent. The appellate court held that the GPA executed by Simona in
1966 was not sufficient to authorize Mauricio to sell the Properties because Article 1878 of the Civil
Code ("Article 1878") requires a special power of attorney for such transactions. The appellate court
reasoned that the GPA was executed merely to enable Mauricio to mortgage the Properties, not to
sell them.
The Court of Appeals also found that there was insufficient proof that the vendees made the
mortgage payments on the Properties, since the PNB and DBP receipts were issued in Mauricios
name. The appellate court opined that the rental income of the Properties, which the vendees never
shared with respondents, was sufficient to cover the mortgage payments to PNB and DBP.
The Court of Appeals declared the Deed of Sale void and ordered the partition of the Properties in its
Decision of 21 December 2001 ("CA Decision"), as follows:
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Regional Trial Court of Makati City, Metro-Manila, Branch 13[9]
dated 11 May 2000[,] review of which is sought in these proceedings[,] is REVERSED.
1. The Deed of Sale with Assumption of Real Estate Mortgage (Exh. 4) dated 28 October 1970 is
hereby declared null and void;
2. Judicial Partition on the questioned properties is hereby GRANTED in the following manner:
A. In representation of his deceased mother, LILY BRAVO-DIAZ, intervenor DAVID DIAZ, JR., is
entitled to one-half (1/2) interest of the subject properties;

B. Plaintiff-appellant EDWARD BRAVO and the rest of the five siblings, namely: LILY ELIZABETH,
EDWARD, ROLAND, JR., SENIA, BENJAMIN and OFELIA are entitled to one-sixth (1/6)
representing the other half portion of the subject properties;
C. Plaintiff-appellant Edward Bravo, intervenor DAVID DIAZ, JR., SENIA and BENJAMIN shall
reimburse the defendant-appellees LILY ELIZABETH, OFELIA and ROLAND the sum of One
Thousand (P1,000.00) PESOS representing the consideration paid on the questioned deed of sale
with assumption of mortgage with interest of six (6) percent per annum effective 28 October 1970
until fully paid.
SO ORDERED.12
The Issues
Petitioners seek a reversal of the Decision of the Court of Appeals, raising these issues:
1. WHETHER THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN NOT UPHOLDING THE VALIDITY AND
ENFORCEMENT OF THE DEED OF SALE WITH ASSUMPTION OF MORTGAGE.
2. WHETHER THE COURT OF APPEALS ERRED IN ORDERING THE PARTITION OF THE
PROPERTY IN QUESTION.13
At the least, petitioners argue that the subject sale is valid as to Mauricios share in the Properties.
On the other hand, respondents maintain that they are co-owners of the Properties by succession.
Respondents argue that the sale of the conjugal Properties is void because: (1) Mauricio executed
the Deed of Sale without Simonas consent; and (2) the sale was merely simulated, as shown by the
grossly inadequate consideration Mauricio received for the Properties.
While this case was pending, Leonida Andaya Lolong ("Leonida"), David Jr.s aunt, and Atty.
Cendaa, respondents counsel, informed the Court that David Jr. died on 14 September 2004.
Afterwards, Leonida and Elizabeth wrote separate letters asking for the resolution of this case. Atty.
Cendaa later filed an urgent motion to annotate attorneys lien on TCT Nos. 58999 and 59000. In its
Resolution dated 10 November 2004,14 the Court noted the notice of David Jr.s death, the letters
written by Leonida and Elizabeth, and granted the motion to annotate attorneys lien on TCT Nos.
58999 and 59000.
The Ruling of the Court
The petition is partly meritorious.
The questions of whether Simona consented to the Deed of Sale and whether the subject sale was
simulated are factual in nature. The rule is factual findings of the Court of Appeals are binding on this
Court. However, there are exceptions, such as when the factual findings of the Court of Appeals and
the trial court are contradictory, or when the evidence on record does not support the factual
findings.15 Because these exceptions obtain in the present case, the Court will consider these issues.
On the Requirement of the Wifes Consent
We hold that the Court of Appeals erred when it declared the Deed of Sale void based on Article
166, which states:
Art. 166. Unless the wife has been declared a non compos mentis or a spendthrift, or is under civil
interdiction or is confined in a leprosarium, the husband cannot alienate or encumber any real
property of the conjugal partnership without the wifes consent. If she refuses unreasonably to give
her consent, the court may compel her to grant the same.
This article shall not apply to property acquired by the conjugal partnerships before the effective date
of this Code.

Article 166 expressly applies only to properties acquired by the conjugal partnership after the
effectivity of the Civil Code of the Philippines ("Civil Code"). The Civil Code came into force on 30
August 1950.16 Although there is no dispute that the Properties were conjugal properties of Mauricio
and Simona, the records do not show, and the parties did not stipulate, when the Properties were
acquired.17 Under Article 1413 of the old Spanish Civil Code, the husband could alienate conjugal
partnership property for valuable consideration without the wifes consent. 18
Even under the present Civil Code, however, the Deed of Sale is not void. It is well-settled that
contracts alienating conjugal real property without the wifes consent are merely voidable under the
Civil Code that is, binding on the parties unless annulled by a competent court and not void ab
initio.19
Article 166 must be read in conjunction with Article 173 of the Civil Code ("Article 173"). The latter
prescribes certain conditions before a sale of conjugal property can be annulled for lack of the wifes
consent, as follows:
Art. 173. The wife may, during the marriage and within ten years from the
transaction questioned, ask the courts for the annulment of any contract of the husband entered
into without her consent, when such consent is required, or any act or contract of the husband which
tends to defraud her or impair her interest in the conjugal partnership property. Should the wife fail
to exercise this right, she or her heirs after the dissolution of the marriage, may demand the
value of property fraudulently alienated by the husband. (Emphasis supplied)
Under the Civil Code, only the wife can ask to annul a contract that disposes of conjugal real
property without her consent. The wife must file the action for annulment during the marriage and
within ten years from the questioned transaction. Article 173 is explicit on the remedies available if
the wife fails to exercise this right within the specified period. In such case, the wife or her heirs can
only demand the value of the property provided they prove that the husband fraudulently alienated
the property. Fraud is never presumed, but must be established by clear and convincing evidence. 20
Respondents action to annul the Deed of Sale based on Article 166 must fail for having been filed
out of time. The marriage of Mauricio and Simona was dissolved when Mauricio died in 1973. More
than ten years have passed since the execution of the Deed of Sale.
Further, respondents, who are Simonas heirs, are not the parties who can invoke Article 166. Article
173 reserves that remedy to the wife alone. Only Simona had the right to have the sale of the
Properties annulled on the ground that Mauricio sold the Properties without her consent.
Simona, however, did not assail the Deed of Sale during her marriage or even after Mauricios death.
The records are bereft of any indication that Simona questioned the sale of the Properties at any
time. Simona did not even attempt to take possession of or reside on the Properties after Mauricios
death. David Jr., who was raised by Simona, testified that he and Simona continued to live in Pasay
City after Mauricios death, while her children and other grandchildren resided on the Properties. 21
We also agree with the trial court that Simona authorized Mauricio to dispose of the Properties when
she executed the GPA. True, Article 1878 requires a special power of attorney for an agent to
execute a contract that transfers the ownership of an immovable. However, the Court has clarified
that Article 1878 refers to the nature of the authorization, not to its form. 22 Even if a document is titled
as a general power of attorney, the requirement of a special power of attorney is met if there is a
clear mandate from the principal specifically authorizing the performance of the act. 23
In Veloso v. Court of Appeals,24 the Court explained that a general power of attorney could contain
a special power to sell that satisfies the requirement of Article 1878, thus:
An examination of the records showed that the assailed power of attorney was valid and regular on
its face. It was notarized and as such, it carries the evidentiary weight conferred upon it with respect
to its due execution. While it is true that it was denominated as a general power of attorney, a
perusal thereof revealed that it stated an authority to sell, to wit:

"2. To buy or sell, hire or lease, mortgage or otherwise hypothecate lands, tenements and
hereditaments or other forms of real property, more specifically TCT No. 49138, upon such terms
and conditions and under such covenants as my said attorney shall deem fit and proper."
Thus, there was no need to execute a separate and special power of attorney since the general
power of attorney had expressly authorized the agent or attorney in fact the power to sell the subject
property. The special power of attorney can be included in the general power when it is
specified therein the act or transaction for which the special power is required. (Emphasis
supplied)
In this case, Simona expressly authorized Mauricio in the GPA to "sell, assign and dispose of any
and all of my property, real, personal or mixed, of any kind whatsoever and wheresoever situated,
or any interest therein xxx" as well as to "act as my general representative and agent, with full
authority to buy, sell, negotiate and contract for me and in my behalf." 25 Taken together, these
provisions constitute a clear and specific mandate to Mauricio to sell the Properties. Even if it is
called a "general power of attorney," the specific provisions in the GPA are sufficient for the purposes
of Article 1878. These provisions in the GPA likewise indicate that Simona consented to the sale of
the Properties.
Whether the Sale of the Properties was Simulated
or is Void for Gross Inadequacy of Price
We point out that the law on legitime does not bar the disposition of property for valuable
consideration to descendants or compulsory heirs. In a sale, cash of equivalent value replaces the
property taken from the estate.26There is no diminution of the estate but merely a substitution in
values. Donations and other dispositions by gratuitous title, on the other hand, must be included in
the computation of legitimes.27
Respondents, however, contend that the sale of the Properties was merely simulated. As proof,
respondents point to the consideration of P1,000 in the Deed of Sale, which respondents claim is
grossly inadequate compared to the actual value of the Properties.
Simulation of contract and gross inadequacy of price are distinct legal concepts, with different
effects. When the parties to an alleged contract do not really intend to be bound by it, the contract is
simulated and void.28 A simulated or fictitious contract has no legal effect whatsoever 29 because there
is no real agreement between the parties.
In contrast, a contract with inadequate consideration may nevertheless embody a true agreement
between the parties. A contract of sale is a consensual contract, which becomes valid and binding
upon the meeting of minds of the parties on the price and the object of the sale. 30 The concept of a
simulated sale is thus incompatible with inadequacy of price. When the parties agree on a price as
the actual consideration, the sale is not simulated despite the inadequacy of the price. 31
Gross inadequacy of price by itself will not result in a void contract. Gross inadequacy of price does
not even affect the validity of a contract of sale, unless it signifies a defect in the consent or that the
parties actually intended a donation or some other contract.32 Inadequacy of cause will not invalidate
a contract unless there has been fraud, mistake or undue influence. 33 In this case, respondents have
not proved any of the instances that would invalidate the Deed of Sale.
Respondents even failed to establish that the consideration paid by the vendees for the Properties
was grossly inadequate. As the trial court pointed out, the Deed of Sale stipulates that, in addition to
the payment of P1,000, the vendees should assume the mortgage loans from PNB and DBP. The
consideration for the sale of the Properties was thus P1,000 in cash and the assumption of
the P15,000 mortgage.
Respondents argue that P16,000 is still far below the actual value of the Properties. To bolster their
claim, respondents presented the following: (1) Tax Declarations No. A-001-00905 34 and A-0010090635 for the year 1979, which placed the assessed value of the Properties at P70,020 and their

approximate market value atP244,290; and (2) a certified copy of the Department of Finances
Department Order No. 62-9736 dated 6 June 1997 and attached guidelines37 which established the
zonal value of the properties along Evangelista Street atP15,000 per square meter.
The subject Deed of Sale, however, was executed in 1970. The valuation of the Properties in 1979
or 1997 is of little relevance to the issue of whether P16,000 was a grossly inadequate price to pay
for the Properties in 1970. Certainly, there is nothing surprising in the sharp increase in the value of
the Properties nine or twenty-seven years after the sale, particularly when we consider that the
Properties are located in the City of Makati.
More pertinent are Tax Declarations No. 1581238 and No. 15813,39 both issued in 1967, presented by
petitioners. These tax declarations placed the assessed value of both Properties at P16,160.
Compared to this, the price ofP16,000 cannot be considered grossly inadequate, much less so
shocking to the conscience40 as to justify the setting aside of the Deed of Sale.
Respondents next contend that the vendees did not make the mortgage payments on the Properties.
Respondents allege that the rents paid by the tenants leasing portions of the Properties were
sufficient to cover the mortgage payments to DBP and PNB.
Again, this argument does not help respondents cause. Assuming that the vendees failed to pay the
full price stated in the Deed of Sale, such partial failure would not render the sale void.
In Buenaventura v. Court of Appeals,41 the Court held:
xxx If there is a meeting of the minds of the parties as to the price, the contract of sale is valid,
despite the manner of payment, or even the breach of that manner of payment. xxx
It is not the act of payment of price that determines the validity of a contract of sale. Payment of the
price has nothing to do with the perfection of the contract. Payment of the price goes into the
performance of the contract. Failure to pay the consideration is different from lack of consideration.
The former results in a right to demand the fulfillment or cancellation of the obligation under an
existing valid contract while the latter prevents the existence of a valid contract. (Emphasis
supplied.)
Neither was it shown that the rentals from tenants were sufficient to cover the mortgage payments.
The parties to this case stipulated to only one tenant, a certain Federico M. Puno, who supposedly
leased a room on the Properties for P300 per month from 1992 to 1994.42 This is hardly significant,
when we consider that the mortgage was fully paid by 1974. Indeed, the fact that the Properties
were mortgaged to DBP and PNB indicates that the conjugal partnership, or at least Mauricio, was
short of funds.
Petitioners point out that they were duly employed and had the financial capacity to buy the
Properties in 1970. Respondents did not refute this. Petitioners presented 72 receipts 43 showing the
mortgage payments made to PNB and DBP, and the Release of the Real Estate
Mortgage44 ("Mortgage Release") dated 5 April 1974. True, these documents all bear Mauricios
name. However, this tends to support, rather than detract from, petitioner-vendees explanation that
they initially gave the mortgage payments directly to Mauricio, and then later directly to the banks,
without formally advising the bank of the sale. The last 3 mortgage receipts and the Mortgage
Release were all issued in Mauricios name even after his death in 1970. Obviously, Mauricio could
not have secured the Mortgage Release and made these last payments.
Presumption of Regularity and Burden of Proof
The Deed of Sale was notarized and, as certified by the Regional Trial Court of Manila, entered in
the notarial books submitted to that court. As a document acknowledged before a notary public, the
Deed of Sale enjoys the presumption of regularity45 and due execution.46 Absent evidence that is
clear, convincing and more than merely preponderant, the presumption must be upheld. 47
Respondents evidence in this case is not even preponderant. Respondents allegations, testimony
and bare denials cannot prevail over the documentary evidence presented by petitioners. These

documents the Deed of Sale and the GPA which are both notarized, the receipts, the Mortgage
Release and the 1967 tax declarations over the Properties support petitioners account of the sale.
As the parties challenging the regularity of the Deed of Sale and alleging its simulation, respondents
had the burden of proving these charges.48 Respondents failed to discharge this burden.
Consequentially, the Deed of Sale stands.
On the Partition of the Property
Nevertheless, this Court finds it proper to grant the partition of the Properties, subject to modification.
Petitioners have consistently claimed that their father is one of the vendees who bought the
Properties. Vendees Elizabeth and Ofelia both testified that the "Roland A. Bravo" in the Deed of
Sale is their father,49 although their brother, Roland Bravo, Jr., made some of the mortgage
payments. Petitioners counsel, Atty. Paggao, made the same clarification before the trial court. 50
As Roland Bravo, Sr. is also the father of respondent Edward Bravo, Edward is thus a compulsory
heir of Roland Bravo, and entitled to a share, along with his brothers and sisters, in his fathers
portion of the Properties. In short, Edward and petitioners are co-owners of the Properties.
As such, Edward can rightfully ask for the partition of the Properties. Any co-owner may demand at
any time the partition of the common property unless a co-owner has repudiated the coownership.51 This action for partition does not prescribe and is not subject to laches. 52
WHEREFORE, we REVERSE the Decision of 21 December 2001 of the Court of Appeals in CAG.R. CV No. 67794. We REINSTATE the Decision of 11 May 2000 of the Regional Trial Court of
Makati, Branch No. 139, in Civil Case No. 97-137, declaring VALID the Deed of Sale with
Assumption of Mortgage dated 28 October 1970, with the following MODIFICATIONS:
1. We GRANT judicial partition of the subject Properties in the following manner:
a. Petitioner LILY ELIZABETH BRAVO-GUERRERO is entitled to one-third (1/3) of the Properties;
b. Petitioner OFELIA BRAVO-QUIESTAS is entitled to one-third (1/3) of the Properties; and
c. The remaining one-third (1/3) portion of the Properties should be divided equally between the
children of ROLAND BRAVO.
2. The other heirs of ROLAND BRAVO must reimburse ROLAND BRAVO, JR. for whatever
expenses the latter incurred in paying for and securing the release of the mortgage on the
Properties.
SO ORDERED.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
THIRD DIVISION

G.R. No. 117246 August 21, 1995

BENIGNO MANUEL, LIBERATO MANUEL, LORENZO MANUEL, PLACIDA MANUEL,
MADRONA MANUEL, ESPERANZA MANUEL, AGAPITA MANUEL, BASILISA MANUEL, EMILIA
MANUEL and NUMERIANA MANUEL, petitioners,
vs.
HON. NICODEMO T. FERRER, Presiding Judge, Regional Trial Court, Branch 37, Lingayen,
Pangasinan, MODESTA BALTAZAR and ESTANISLAOA MANUEL, respondents.

VITUG, J.:
The property involved in this petition for review on certiorari is the inheritance left by an illegitimate
child who died intestate without any surviving descendant or ascendant.
Petitioners, the legitimate children of spouses Antonio Manuel and Beatriz Guiling, initiated this suit.
During his marriage with Beatriz, Antonio had an extra-marital affair with one Ursula Bautista. From
this relationship, Juan Manuel was born. Several years passed before Antonio Manuel, his wife
Beatriz, and his mistress Ursula finally crossed the bar on, respectively, 06 August 1960, 05
February 1981 and 04 November 1976.
Juan Manuel, the illegitimate son of Antonio, married Esperanza Gamba. In consideration of the
marriage, a donation propter nuptias over a parcel of land, with an area of 2,700 square meters,
covered by Original Certificate of Title ("OCT") No. P-20594 was executed in favor of Juan Manuel
by Laurenciana Manuel. Two other parcels of land, covered by OCT P-19902 and Transfer
Certificate of Title ("TCT") No. 41134, were later bought by Juan and registered in his name. The
couple were not blessed with a child of their own. Their desire to have one impelled the spouses to
take private respondent Modesta Manuel-Baltazar into their fold and so raised her as their own
"daughter".
On 03 June 1980, Juan Manuel executed in favor of Estanislaoa Manuel a Deed of Sale Con Pacto
de Retro (with a 10-year period of redemption) over a one-half (1/2) portion of his land covered by
TCT No. 41134. Juan Manuel died intestate on 21 February 1990. Two years later, or on 04
February 1992, Esperanza Gamba also passed away.
On 05 March 1992, a month after the death of Esperanza, Modesta executed an Affidavit of SelfAdjudication claiming for herself the three parcels of land covered by OCT P-20594, OCT P-19902
and TCT No. 41134 (all still in the name of Juan Manuel). Following the registration of the document
of adjudication with the Office of the Register of Deeds, the three titles
(OCT P-20594, OCT P-19902 and TCT No. 41134) in the name of Juan Manuel were canceled and
new titles, TCT No. 184223, TCT No. 184224 and TCT No. 184225, were issued in the name of
Modesta Manuel-Baltazar. On 19 October 1992, Modesta executed in favor of her co-respondent
Estanislaoa Manuel a Deed of Renunciation and Quitclaim over the unredeemed one-half (1/2)
portion of the land (now covered by TCT No. 184225) that was sold to the latter by Juan Manuel
under the 1980 Deed of Sale Con Pacto de Retro. These acts of Modesta apparently did not sit well
with petitioners. In a complaint filed before the Regional Trial Court of Lingayen, Pangasinan, the
petitioners sought the declaration of nullity of the aforesaid instruments.
The case, there being no material dispute on the facts, was submitted to the court a quo for
summary judgment.
The trial court, in its now assailed 15th August 1994 decision, dismissed the complaint holding that
petitioners, not being heirs ab intestato of their illegitimate brother Juan Manuel, were not the real

parties-in-interest to institute the suit. Petitioners were also ordered to jointly and severally
(solidarily) pay
(a) respondent Modesta Manuel-Baltazar the sum of P5,000.00 for moral damages, P5,000.00 for
exemplary damages, P5,000.00 for attorney's fees and P500.00 for litigation expenses and (b)
Estanislaoa Manuel the sum of P5,000.00 for moral damages, P5,000.00 for exemplary damages
and P500.00 for attorney's fees.
Petitioners' motion for reconsideration was denied by the trial court.
The petition before us raises the following contentions: That
1. THE LOWER COURT (HAS) FAILED TO CONSIDER THE LAST PARAGRAPH OF
ARTICLE 994 OF THE NEW CIVIL CODE, AS THE CONTROLLING LAW APPLICABLE BY
VIRTUE OF THE ADMITTED FACTS, AND NOT ARTICLE 992 OF THE SAME CODE.
2. THE LOWER COURT, IN NOT ANNULLING ALL THE ACTS OF, AND VOIDING ALL
DOCUMENTS EXECUTED BY, RESPONDENT MODESTA BALTAZAR, WHO ARROGATED
UNTO HERSELF THE RIGHTS OF AN HEIR TO THE ESTATE OF DECEDENT JUAN
MANUEL, (HAS) VIRTUALLY GRANTED SAID RESPONDENT THE STATUS OF AN HEIR
MANIFESTLY CONTRARY TO LAW, MORALS AND PUBLIC POLICY.
3. TO ENFORCE ONE'S RIGHT WHEN THEY ARE VIOLATED IS NEVER A LEGAL
WRONG. 1
Petitioners argue that they are the legal heirs over one-half of Juan's intestate estate (while the other
half would pertain to Juan's surviving spouse) under the provision of the last paragraph of Article 994
of the Civil Code, providing thusly:
Art. 994. In default of the father or mother, an illegitimate child shall be succeeded by his or
her surviving spouse, who shall be entitled to the entire estate.
If the widow or widower should survive with brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, she
or he shall inherit one-half of the estate, and the latter the other half. (Emphasis supplied)
Respondents, in turn, submit that Article 994 should be read in conjunction with Article 992 of the
Civil Code, which reads:
Art. 992. An illegitimate child has no right to inherit ab intestato from the legitimate children
and relatives of his father or mother; nor shall such children or relative inherit in the same
manner from the illegitimate child. (Emphasis supplied)
Article 992, a basic postulate, enunciates what is so commonly referred to in the rules on succession
as the "principle of absolute separation between the legitimate family and the illegitimate family." The
doctrine rejects succession ab intestato in the collateral line between legitimate relatives, on the one
hand, and illegitimate relatives, on other hand, although it does not totally disavow such succession
in the direct line. Since the rule is predicated on the presumed will of the decedent, it has no
application, however, on testamentary dispositions.
This "barrier" between the members of the legitimate and illegitimate family in intestacy is explained
by a noted civilist. 2 His thesis:
What is meant by the law when it speaks of brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, as
legal or intestate heirs of an illegitimate child? It must be noted that under Art. 992 of the
Code, there is a barrier dividing members of the illegitimate family from members of the
legitimate family. It is clear that by virtue of this barrier, the legitimate brothers and sisters as
well as the children, whether legitimate or illegitimate, of such brothers and sisters, cannot
inherit from the illegitimate child. Consequently, when the law speaks of "brothers and
sisters, nephews and nieces" as legal heirs of an illegitimate child, it refers to illegitimate
brothers and sisters as well as to the children, whether legitimate or illegitimate, of such
brothers and sisters. (Emphasis supplied)

The Court, too, has had occasions to explain this "iron curtain", firstly, in the early case of Grey
v. Fabie 3 and, then, in the relatively recent cases of Diaz v. Intermediate Appellate Court 4 and De la
Puerta v. Court of Appeals. 5 In Diaz, we have said:
Article 992 of the New Civil Code . . . prohibits absolutely a succession ab intestato between
the illegitimate child and the legitimate children and relatives of the father or mother of said
legitimate child. They may have a natural tie of blood, but this is not recognized by law for
the purposes of Article 992. Between the legitimate family and the illegitimate family there is
presumed to be an intervening antagonism and incompatibility. The illegitimate child is
disgracefully looked down upon by the legitimate family; the legitimate family is, in turn,
hated by the illegitimate child; the latter considers the privileged condition of the former, and
the resources of which it is thereby deprived; the former, in turn, sees in the illegitimate child
nothing but the product of sin, palpable evidence of a blemish broken in life; the law does no
more than recognize this truth, by avoiding further grounds of resentment.
The rule in Article 992 has consistently been applied by the Court in several other cases. Thus, it has
ruled that where the illegitimate child had
half-brothers who were legitimate, the latter had no right to the former's inheritance; 6 that the
legitimate collateral relatives of the mother cannot succeed from her illegitimate child; 7 that a natural child
cannot represent his natural father in the succession to the estate of the legitimate grandparent; 8 that the
natural daughter cannot succeed to the estate of her deceased uncle who is a legitimate brother of her
natural father; 9 and that an illegitimate child has no right to inherit ab intestato from the legitimate children
and relatives of his father. 10 Indeed, the law on succession is animated by a uniform general intent, and
thus no part should be rendered inoperative 11 by, but must always be construed in relation to, any other
part as to produce a harmonious whole. 12
In passing, we might, in easy graphic presentation, collate the order of preference and concurrence
in intestacy expressed in Article 978 through
Article 1014, inclusive, of the Civil Code; viz.:

Order of Preference

(a Legitimate Children
) and

Descendants

Order of Concurrence

(a) Legitimate Children

and

Descendants,
Illegitimate

Children and
Descendants,

and Surviving Spouse

(b Legitimate Parents
) and

Ascendants

(b) Legitimate Parents

and

Ascendants
Illegitimate

Children and
Descendants,

and Surviving Spouse

(c) Illegitimate Children

and

(c) Illegitimate Children

and

Descendants (in the

absence

Descendants and
Surviving

of ICDs and LPAs,

the

Spouse

Illegitimate Parents)

(d Surviving Spouse
)

(d) Surviving Spouse and

Illegitimate Parents

(e Brothers and Sisters/ (e) Brothers and Sisters/

)

Nephews and

Nephews and Nieces

Nieces

and Surviving Spouse

(f) Other Collateral

Relatives

(f) Alone

(within the fifth civil

degree)

(g State
)

(g) Alone

In her answer to the complaint, Modesta candidly admitted that she herself is not an intestate
heir of Juan Manuel. She is right. A ward (ampon), without the benefit of formal (judicial)
adoption, is neither a compulsory nor a legal heir. 13
We must hold, nevertheless, that the complaint of petitioners seeking the nullity of the
Affidavit of Self-Adjudication executed by Modesta, the three (3) TCT's issued to her favor,
as well as the Deed of Renunciation and Quitclaim in favor of Estanislaoa Manuel, was
properly dismissed by the trial court. Petitioners, not being the real "parties-in-interest" 14 in
the case, had neither the standing nor the cause of action to initiate the complaint.

The Court, however, sees no sufficient reason to sustain the award of amounts for moral and
exemplary damages, attorney's fees and litigation expenses. An adverse result of a suit in
law does not mean that its advocacy is necessarily so wrongful as to justify an assessment
of damages against the actor. 15
WHEREFORE, the appealed decision of the Regional Trial Court of Pangasinan (Branch 37)
is AFFIRMED, except insofar as it has awarded moral and exemplary damages, as well as
attorney's fees and litigation expenses, in favor of private respondents, which portion is
hereby DELETED. No special pronouncement on costs.
SO ORDERED.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
FIRST DIVISION
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 inCabardo 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

But the obligation of paying the Standard Oil Co. of New York the amount of P3,971.20 is imposed
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 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.
SO ORDERED.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. 14904

September 19, 1921

FRANCISCO D. LUNSOD, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants,

vs.
SINFOROSO ORTEGA, ET AL., defendants-appellees.
Pascual and Bernardo etc. Cecilio for appellants.
Benito Gimenez Zoboli for appellees.
ARAULLO, J.:
On June 3, 1915, Rufina Medel, widow, resident of the municipality of San Pablo, Province of
Laguna, in a public document executed and acknowledged on the same day before Felix Esconde,
notary public for and in said municipality, sold to Francisco Lunsod, husband of Gabina Peyamonte,
for the sum of P2,000 and with the right to repurchase for two years, three parcel of land planted
with coconut trees, situated in the barrio of Sta. Catalina of said municipality, described in said
document and in the complaint to which reference is hereafter made, it being a condition of the sale
that the vendor could not exercise the right to repurchase until after the expiration of said two years
from the date of the document and that two-thirds of the fruits produced by said land would belong to
the purchaser and one-third to the vendor, as compensation for the work of cleaning and taking care
of the parcels of land during said period.
On September 19, 1916, Francisco Lunsod filed in the justice of the peace court of San Pablo a
complaint against Sinforoso Ortega and Candido Cariaga, the case being docketed there as civil
case No. 861. In said complaint the description of the parcels in question was given and the plaintiff
alleged that he was the owner of the three parcels of land mentioned in the aforementioned
document and that on or about June 4, 1916, he was illegally, and by means of strategy and stealth,
turned out of the possession thereof by Sinforoso Ortega and Candido Cariaga, who have been
collecting the fruits, thereby injuring him in the sum of P150. The plaintiff, therefore, prayed that
judgment be rendered against the defendants, ordering them to deliver the possession to the
plaintiff, and compelling them to pay to the plaintiff the sum of P150, the value of the coconuts taken
and the damages occasioned to the latter, and further, that a writ of preliminary injunction be issued
enjoining the defendants from continuing to perform acts of possession upon the land and from
gathering the fruits.
The defendants having answered the complaint, judgment was rendered on October 26, 1916, by
the justice of the peace court in favor of the plaintiff, sentencing Sinforoso Ortega to restore the
possession of the property in question to the plaintiff and to pay the sum of P150, as damages
sustained by the latter, with the costs. The case was dismissed as to the defendant Cariaga. From
this judgment an appeal was taken to the Court of First Instance by the defendant Ortega. In the
Court of First Instance an incidental question was raised by the plaintiff concerning the irregularity
and insufficiency of the bond filed by the defendant for the purpose of the appeal and it was asked
that the appeal be declared improperly taken and dismissed. This motion was overruled in said court
and due exception was taken by the plaintiff, who thereupon reproduced his complaint in said court
against the defendant Sinforoso Ortega only, but without the allegation that he was the owner of said
parcels, it being only alleged that prior to the month of June, 1916, he was in the quiet and peaceful
possession and enjoyment thereof, and, in addition to what was alleged in his complaint in the
justice of the peace court, that the defendant Sinforoso Ortega has used force and intimidation in
turning him out of said possession and that until said day, March 9, 1917, said defendant illegally
detained said parcels. The plaintiff prayed that the injunction mentioned in his previous complaint be
issued against the defendant, that he be sentenced to restore the possession of said three parcels to
the plaintiff, and to pay the sum of P150 as damages and whatever other damages may have been
suffered by him from the month of September, 1916, the date of the filing of the complaint, until the
final disposition of the case, and the costs.

In answer to said complaint, the defendant Ortega denied generally and specifically each and every
allegation thereof, and alleged, as a special defense, that he was in possession of said parcels
because he was, together with his sister Francisca Ortega, a pro indiviso owner thereof, and that his
possession was not obtained illegally, nor by the means mentioned in the complaint. The defendant,
therefore, prayed that he be absolved from the complaint and the injunction denied.
To this answer the plaintiff filed a reply, denying generally and specifically all the facts alleged
therein, and further stating that said three parcels were his exclusive property, having acquired them
by purchase from Rufina Medel, deceased, the sole and absolute owner thereof.
Said Rufina Medel having died on April 10, 1916, intestate proceedings, docketed as case No. 2218,
were instituted in the same Court of First Instance of Laguna by Cipriano Medel, brother of said
deceased, for the appointment of an administrator of the property left by her, and Cipriano Medel
himself was appointed administrator. An inventory of the property of said deceased having been
submitted on October 31, 1916, in which the three parcels of land in question were included, with the
statement that they had been sold to Francisco Lunsod with the right to repurchase for the sum of
P2,000, Sinforoso Ortega and Francisca Ortega appeared in said proceedings and filed a motion
asking that said parcels be excluded from the inventory on the ground that said parcels were their
exclusive property and were then in their exclusive possession, having inherited the same from their
first cousin, Anacleta Ortega, who died in the municipality of San Pablo on or about June 8, 1903.
This petition was opposed by said administrator and denied by the court on November 25, 1916,
reserving to Sinforoso Ortega and Francisca Ortega the right to institute the proper action against
the administrator of the property, on the ground that the question as to the ownership of those
parcels could not be raised in said proceedings.
By virtue of said resolution, Sinforoso Ortega and Francisca Ortega filed, on the same day that the
order was issued, a complaint in the Court of First Instance, which was afterwards amended and
docketed as case No. 2286, against said administrator of the estate of Rufina Medel, deceased, and
Francisco Lunsod, the plaintiff in the case for unlawful entry and detainer. It was there alleged that
through inheritance from their deceased father Mariano Ortega and their niece Anacleta Ortega,
deceased, they, Sinforoso Ortega and Francisca Ortega, were the absolute owners thereof, and had
been in possession of said parcels in question; that the defendants, by common accord, without any
legal right, in an attempt to dispossess them of said parcels, had decided to molest and interrupt
them in the possession and enjoyment thereof. In support of this claim it was alleged that Francisco
Lunsod had presented a criminal complaint against them for theft of coconuts in the justice of the
peace court of San Pablo, which was dismissed, as appeared from the certained copy attached to
the complaint as a part thereof, and Cipriano Medel had included said parcels of land in the
inventory submitted by him, as administrator of the estate of said deceased in the intestate
proceeding No. 2218, and both had filed numberless charges against them for theft of coconuts
all this in addition to the other acts performed by said defendants which restricted the rights of the
plaintiffs as owners of said property from the death of Rufina Medel on April 10, 1916, who, during
her lifetime, had only the usufruct of said parcels. The plaintiffs pray: (1) That said parcels be
excluded by said administrator of the estate from the inventory; (2) that they, the plaintiffs, be
declared the sole owners of said parcels and the improvements thereon; (3) that a preliminary
injunction be issued and that it be made absolute, enjoining the defendants, their agents or
representatives from disturbing the plaintiffs in their possession and the exercise of their rights as
owners, which they had been exercising upon said parcels, and from intervening in the gathering of
the fruits thereof.
The prayer for the preliminary injunction was denied on the ground that the question whether or not
the death of Rufina Medel gave an end to the usufruct and possession of said parcels, which
apparently were in the possession of the intestate estate, as they were included in said inventory,
would have to be finally determined in the very case initiated by said complaint; and a demurrer to
the complaint having been presented by the defendants and overruled by the court, the defendants
answered the complaint, denying generally and specifically all the facts alleged therein, and alleging
as special defense, besides those stated as grounds of the demurer, that one of them, Cipriano
Medel, and his sister, Jacoba Medel, acquired said three parcels of land by inheritance from their
deceased sister Rufina Medel, the same being a property belonging to the intestate estate of said
deceased, the record of which was made an integral part of the answer; that therefore it was against
the law and improper to sue the administrator of said estate before the debts were paid and the

liquidation and adjudication affected by the court; that said deceased was at any event the sole heir
in the direct line of her deceased daughter Anacleta Ortega, the latter having died before her mother
while still young and long after her father Estanislao Ortega; that there was no will, and as Rufina
Medel left neither legitimate descendants nor ascendants, nor acknowledged or legitimated children,
her brother and sister who survived her, the defendant Cipriano Medel and the latter's sister Jacoba,
succeeded her directly, in all her obligations, rights and choses in action affecting said three parcels
of land, according to said intestate proceeding No. 2218, and that Rufina Medel, together with her
predecessors and heirs, had been exercising the absolute right of ownership over said parcels and
had been possessing them as owners quietly and peacefully, without any interruption, for many
years until July 4, 1916, when they were usurped by the plaintiffs. As a counterclaim the defendants
also alleged that Rufina Medel in her lifetime, to wit, on June 3, 1915, sold said three parcels and
others with right of repurchase to one of them the defendant Francisco Lunsod, for the sum of
P2,000, as appears in a public instrument, also made a part of the answer, and that on the same
date said Francisco Lunsod took possession thereof, having been in the quiet and peaceful
possession and enjoyment of the same until the plaintiffs by means of force, strategy and fraud,
illegally deprived them of said possession, said plaintiffs having been since then gathering the fruits
of the lands, notwithstanding the protest and demands made by said Lunsod, who by reason of said
detention had suffered damages in the sum of P1,140, the value of the coconuts gathered. Said
defendants therefore prayed that they be absolved from the complaint and that the deceased Rufina
Medel be declared to be the sole owner of said three parcels of land, as the sole intestate heirs of
her deceased daughter Anacleta Ortega and successor of the latter in all her rights and obligations
and that Cipriano Medel and his sister Jacoba were equally intestate heirs with respect to the
properties left by the deceased Rufina and that the acts and contracts executed by the latter should
be considered subsisting; and, finally, that the plaintiffs be sentenced to return said three parcels to
the defendant Francisco Lunsod and to pay P1,440, ad damages caused said defendant, plus the
sum of P90, as the value of the crop for every two months until said restitution is effected, and that, if
the plaintiffs should not pay said sum to the defendant Lunsod, they be ordered, pending the trial
and until final judgment, to deposit said crop as the average product for every two succeeding
months.
In answer to said counterclaim, the plaintiffs denied all the allegation thereof, setting up as a special
defense that the sale of the lands in question with the right to repurchase, made by Rufina Medel in
favor of Francisco Lunsod, was absolutely null and void because the vendor was not the true and
exclusive owner of said parcels of land at the time of said sale, for which reason it did not have any
effect, and the plaintiffs asked that they be absolved from the counterclaim.
After the institution of intestate proceedings for the settlement of the estate of the deceased Rufina
Medel, to wit, on November 6, 1916, which was one and one-half month after the filing by Francisco
Lunsod of the complaint for unlawful detainer and six days after the inventory of the properties left by
said deceased had been made and submitted, the administrator of the estate, Cipriano Medel, and
his sister Jacoba presented in the same Court of First Instance of Laguna an application, which was
later amended, for the registration in their name, in accordance with the Land Registration Act, of
said three parcels with the improvements thereon, described in the plans attached thereto. In said
application it was alleged that they acquired the absolute title thereof through inheritance from their
deceased sister Rufina Medel, and that said parcels were occupied since the year 1915 by
Francisco Lunsod to whom they had been sold with the right to repurchase by their sister Rufina.
The applicants finally invoked the benefits of chapter 6 of Act No. 926, on the ground that they had
been in continuous, open and peaceful possession of the land for more than 21 years including that
of their predecessors in interest.
The application, which was docketed as case No. 219, was opposed on the one hand by Francisco
Lunsod, and on the other, by Sinforoso Ortega and Francisca Ortega. The first named person
alleged that, the period for the repurchase of said parcels, stipulated in the document of June 3,
1915, having already expired, without any of those believing themselves entitled thereto having
made use of the right of redemption, he was the sole and exclusive owner thereof. The last two
named persons, in turn, claimed that they were the absolute owners and were in possession thereof,
having acquired them by inheritance from their deceased father Mariano Ortega and their deceased
niece Anacleta Ortega.

The three civil suits respectively mentioned, to wit, case No. 2322, for unlawful entry and detainer,
case No. 2286, for the recovery of title, and exclusion of the land from the inventory of the intestate
estate of the deceased Rufina Medel and the issuance of a preliminary injunction against the
defendants, and finally case No. 219, that is to say, the proceedings instituted by Cipriano Medel and
his sister Jacoba Medel for the registration of said three parcels, were jointly tried, by common
consent of the parties; and it was agreed between the parties that the evidence introduced in case
No. 2286, should be considered as evidence in the other two cases. After said trial the Court of First
Instance of Laguna rendered judgment as follows: In case No. 219, which is the land registration
case, it was declared that Cipriano and Jacoba Medel had no right to a decree of registration and the
application was therefore dismissed, with costs. In the other tow civil cases, Nos. 2286 and 2322, it
was held that the three parcels of land in question belonged to Sinforoso Ortega and Francisca
Ortega, and it was therefore ordered that the defeated party should pay the costs and that said three
parcels should be excluded from the inventory submitted by Cipriano Medel, administrator of the
estate of the deceased Rufina Medel in civil case No. 2218, the intestate proceeding. To this
judgment the plaintiff Francisco Lunsod and the administrator of the intestate estate, Cipriano Medel,
and his sister Jacoba Medel excepted, and filed a motion for new trial, which was denied with their
exception, and took an appeal by the proper bill of exceptions, which was transmitted to this court.
In their brief the appellants assign various errors to the judgment of the trial court. Some of these
errors refer to the allowance of the appeal from the judgment rendered by the justice of the peace
court, notwithstanding the alleged irregularity of the bond filed; to the consequent lack of jurisdiction
of the Court of First Instance to take cognizance of the case on account thereof and for the reason
that an original complaint asking for the issuance of a preliminary injunction as to said three parcels
had been filed, although said complaint had no connection with any other case pending before said
court; and lastly, to the overruling by said court of the demurrer to said complaint presented by the
defendants-appellants. The other errors relate to the merits of the case.
The defendant Ortega was not sentenced by the justice of the peace in the case for unlawful entry
and detainer to pay any sum as rent in arrears of the land or as the reasonable value of the use and
occupation of the same, for the judgment did not fix any amount, and the bond filed by him was in
the sum of P500, (not P150, for this was merely the amount which the defendant was sentenced to
pay as damages, and which was, by order of the court dated September 27, 1917, substituted by
P500), to answer to damages and costs, not with only one surety, as claimed by the appellants, but
with two sureties. Therefore said bond was in accordance with the provisions of section 88 of the
Code of Civil Procedure, as amended by Acts Nos. 1776 and 2588; and the defendant is not obliged,
in order to secure a stay of the execution of said judgment, to make any monthly payment, as
required by Act No. 2588, for the reason that there was in the judgment no order for the payment of
rent in arrears nor for any amount for the use and occupation of said parcels. The result is that the
appeal interposed by the defendant against said judgment was properly admitted and the Court of
First Instance acquired jurisdiction to take cognizance of said case.
It is not true that the complaint filed by Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega against Francisco Lunsod
and Cipriano Medel, administrator of the intestate estate of the deceased Rufina Medel, docketed in
the Court of First Instance as case No. 2286, had for its sole object the issuance of a writ of
preliminary injunction against said defendants, prohibiting them from performing acts of ownership
and possession upon said parcels. Neither is it true that said complaint is not related to any other
original action instituted in said court, fro in the same complaint, as already stated, allegations were
made relative to the title of the plaintiffs to said parcels and to the acts performed by the defendants
violative of plaintiffs' right over said parcels and of their possession, use and enjoyment thereof; and
by virtue of these allegations, it was prayed not only that the plaintiffs be declared the only owners of
said parcels with the improvements thereon, as though the proper action to recover the title were
instituted, but also that said parcels be excluded and stricken out from the inventory presented in the
intestate proceedings for the settlement of the estate of said deceased, and, lastly, that said writ of
preliminary injunction be issued. It is, therefore, evident that there is no force in the arguments
advanced by the appellants to show that the trial court committed errors Nos. 4 and 5, assigned in
their brief, in taking cognizance of said action in spite of its lack of jurisdiction, and in overruling the
demurrer to the complaint on the ground that the facts therein stated did not constitute a cause of
action.

Neither does the claim or allegation, made by the appellants, of another action pending, justify the
filing of said demurrer for two reasons: First, in case No. 2322, instituted by Francisco Lunsod
against Sinforoso Ortega and Candido Cariaga in the justice of the peace court, the only question in
issue was as to the actual possession of said three parcels of land, and, although in said case for
unlawful entry and detainer judgment was rendered by said court in favor of the plaintiff, from which
appeal was taken by the defendant Ortega, said judgment, according to the positive provisions of
section 87 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the repeated doctrines of this Court, construing said
section, is no obstacle to the institution by the same parties in the Court of First Instance of another
action respecting the title to said real property, nor is it conclusive evidence, in another case
between the same parties, of the facts established therein. Second, with respect to the petition of the
plaintiffs Ortega in case No. 2286, for the recovery of title, and exclusion of said parcels from the
inventory of the intestate estate of the deceased Rufina Medel, on the ground that the same belong
to them in fee simple and they are entitled to the possession thereof, since the court held in said
intestate proceedings that the question of title to said property was a matter of another action, for it
was not proper to raise it in said proceedings, and the administrator of the intestate did not appeal
from said decision, said ruling became final. Besides, in said motion the defendant Francisco Lunsod
and Jacoba Medel were not parties in said petition while they were parties defendant, together with
Cipriano Medel, in the case for recovery of title No. 2286. Furthermore, it is an established doctrine
of this court that the mere fact that one of the parties is the executor or administrator of the estate of
a deceased person does not confer upon the probate court, in which the proceedings for the
distribution and settlement of said estate are pending, exclusive jurisdiction to decide all questions
that may arise between said executor or administrator and third persons as to the title to a specific
property (Bauermann vs. Casas. 10 Phil., 386), which doctrine the trial court undoubtedly had in
mind in reserving to the plaintiffs in said proceedings the right to institute the proper action against
the administrator of the intestate estate with respect to the ownership of said property.
Lastly, neither could the demurrer be sustained on the ground that the plaintiffs had no capacity to
bring such action docketed as case No. 2286, for the recovery of title, because a plaintiffs lacks
capacity to sue in two cases, to wit, when he does not have the necessary qualifications to appear at
the trial, or when he does not have the character or representation he claims; and, in the present
case, it does not appear from the complaint that the plaintiffs were not in the full exercise of their civil
rights, nor was it necessary that they should first have proved their character as heirs of their
deceased father Mariano Ortega and their deceased niece Anacleta Ortega, for, it having been
alleged that they were absolute owners of the parcels in question by inheritance from them, this
should be, as in fact it was, a matter to be proved at the trial. If it should be accepted that for this
reason the plaintiffs had no capacity to institute the action, it necessarily follows that the defendants
Cipriano Medel and Jacoba Medel would also lack the capacity to exercise, as they did in their
answer to said complaint, their rights as owners of said parcels by inheritance from the deceased
sister Rufina Medel, or the right to ask for the registration of said parcels in the registry of property in
their name because of their character as such heirs, as they did in the application docketed as case
No. 219, which was presented when the proceedings relating to the administration of the intestate
estate of the same deceased were not yet terminated, the inventory of the respective properties was
not yet approved, and no declaration had as yet been made in favor of said defendants.
The questions raised by the parties in the three cases aforesaid by their respective allegations
reduced themselves to one the resolution of which will determine the appeal interposes by the
defendants. This question relates to the title to the three parcels which were sold with the rights to
repurchase by Rufina Medel to Francisco Lunsod in the documents of June 3, 1915.
Considering the documents in connection with the testimony of the appellees Ortega, Prudencio
Baldovino and Aguedo Reyes, it appears from the evidence beyond question: (1) That upon the
death of Mariano Ortega, resident of the municipality of San Pablo, Province of Laguna, which took
place about 27 years ago, he left three children, named Sinforoso, Francisca and Estanislao Ortega;
(2) that Estanislao Ortega was married on May 8, 1895, to Rufina Medel and died on September 26,
1902, leaving a daughter born of said marriage, named Anacleta Ortega, who also died on June 17,
1903, at the age of six years, she and Estanislao Ortega having been survived by said Rufina Medel,
who died on April 10, 1916.
The plaintiff Sinforoso Ortega presented two witnesses, Prudencio Baldovino and Aguedo Reyes,
who are residents of the same municipality of San Pablo, 65 years old, and well informed about the

three parcels of land in question, situated in the barrio of Sta. Catalina of said municipality, because
the first, for about forty years or more, and the second, since he could remember, had possessed
lands in the same place besides the latter being an adjoining owner of the third parcel. From their
testimony it also appears that the person whom they first saw in possession of said three parcels,
cleaning and sowing and planting palay and coconut trees upon them was, according to one of
them, Mariano Ortega, father of Sinforoso Ortega, Francisca Ortega and Estanislao Ortega, said
possession having been quiet and peaceful; that upon the death of Mariano Ortega, he was
succeeded in the possession of said parcels by the three brothers, children of said deceased,
named Sinforoso, Francisca and Estanislao Ortega, who used to help their father in the cultivation of
the land and continued to cultivate it, as was seen by the same witnesses; that upon the death of
Estanislao Ortega, husband of Rufina Medel, the latter and her brother and sister-in-law Sinforoso
and Francisca, respectively, that is to say, the appellees in this case, continued in possession, aiding
one another, according to Sinforoso Ortega, in the cultivation of the land, and dividing the fruits
collected therefrom between them; that upon the death of Rufina Medel on April 10, 1916, said
Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega, and no other, took, or continued in, possession, according to the
second of said witnesses, Aguedo Reyes, one of the appellees, Sinforoso Ortega being at present,
that is to say, at the time the witness was testifying, in possession of the land, although in the month
of October, 1916, Rufina Medel being already dead, Catalino Alaguilan Segundo collected the
coconuts by order, according to them, of Francisco Lunsod, that is, the plaintiff in the case for
unlawful entry and detainer, No. 2322, but after that event Sinforoso Ortega continued in possession.
The same witnesses Baldovino and Reyes described the different parcels in their declarations, the
first having described the boundaries of each of the three parcels and stated the number of trees
planted on them, and the second having given the boundaries of the second parcel about which he
was examined, and also stated the number of coconut trees planted thereon, as well as the fact that
Mariano Ortega had a house on said parcel, which was between the other two parcels; and, finally,
the first, who had been cabeza de barangay and lieutenant of the barrio of Sta. Catalina, as well as
the second who, as aforesaid, possessed lands in that barrio, testified that they did not know that the
Medel family had any land in the same barrio, the last named witness stating that the lands of the
Medel family were in the barrio of San Lorenzo, near that of Sta. Catalina.
Lastly, the attorney for the plaintiffs and appellees Ortega having stated that he still had two
witnesses, named Basilia Balcita, adjoining owner of the third parcel on the west, and Pantaleon
Esconde on the north, and another witness Cirilo Escaba, adjoining owner of the first parcel on the
west, who testify to the same effect as the witness Aguedo Reyes, the attorney for the appellants
accepted their testimony without objection.
On the other hand, from the evidence offered by the defendants it appears, according to Francisco
Lunsod, that he was in possession of said three parcels since June, 1915, the date of the deed of
sale executed by Rufina Medel in his favor, two which reference was made in the beginning of this
decision, as shown by his having ordered the collection of the fruits every two months by his
overseer, who was Cipriano Medel; that his watchman on said lands was Catalino Alaguilan
Segundo; that he held said possession until June, 1916, when the land was taken by Sinforoso
Ortega who prohibited his overseer (Lunsod's) from collecting the fruits on the ground that the
property belonged to him (Ortega): that by reason thereof he filed a complaint in the justice of the
peace court for theft, which was dismissed, and another for forcible entry and detainer; that he
collected fruits six times a year, sometimes personally and sometimes through his overseer,
although he could not exactly say how many times he had been on the land; that he also placed
Rufina Medel herself in charge of that work in her lifetime, she having been succeeded in the
possession by her brother Cipriano; that he knew Rufina Medel to be the true owner of said parcels,
because in the real estate tax declarations, Exhibits 2, 3, and 4, presented by her in the municipality
of San Pablo for the purposes of the payment of the taxes, and introduced at the trial, he saw the
name of said Rufina Medel, the witness identifying the receipt Exhibit 5, also presented by said
defendants, dated May 31, 1917, issued in favor of the same Rufina Medel and evidencing the
payment of the land taxes of 5 parcels of land, two of which, according to the same document, are
situated in said barrio of Sta. Catalina.
Cipriano Medel, testifying as witnesses, declared that he knew that Francisco Lunsod had property
in the barrio of Sta. Catalina because he (Lunsod) had purchased such property in the year 1915
from his sister Rufina Medel, who before that year was in possession thereof; that the parcel in the
sitio of Ma-ancel in said barrio was bought by his parents (the witness') from Mariano Ortega, but he

did not then remember the boundaries thereof nor could be say how many coconut trees there were
on the land because he had not seen them; that the other parcel in the sitio of Duhat was bought by
Rufina Medel from one Julio Bajalaldia, deceased, but the witness does not remember when
because Rufina Medel told him only that she had bought that land; that the other parcel in the sitio of
Lacdawen had not been bought by Rufina Medel from anybody; that the sitio of Ma-ancel is in the
barrio of Sta. Catalina and that the other parcel is in the sitio of Catmon; that since 1915, when said
lands were conveyed to Francisco Lunsod by Rufina Medel the former took possession thereof, but
in the year 1916, Sinforoso Ortega seized (so says the witness) the possession thereof from the
former, prohibiting Lunsod from collecting the coconuts on the land and from interfering in any way
with them on the ground that he, Ortega, was its owner.
Francisco Baldonado, another witness for the defendants, 28 years old and laborer by occupation,
also stated that he knew that Lunsod had a coconut grove in the barrio of Sta. Catalina, because he
had been several times upon said land since 1915 and had bought coconuts from the overseer,
named Cipriano Medel, about four times, and thrice from Lunsod himself, although it is true that the
third time, which took place in the first days of June, 1916, the purchase was not carried into effect
because Sinforoso Ortega suspended the collection of the fruits, telling them that if they should not
do so they would settle the matter by force. The witness also declared that he did not remember the
boundaries of the land on which the gathering of the fruits was suspended, nor the number of
coconut trees or fruits that were in the land, and that when the event occurred Francisco Lunsod was
not present.
The parties stipulated that Mateo Ticson would declare in the same terms as the preceding witness.
Catalino Alaguilan Segundo, a laborer 50 years old, also testifying for the defendants, stated that he
knew that Francisco Lunsod had three parcels of land in said barrio of Sta. Catalina, municipality of
San Pablo, one in the sitio of Lacdawen, another in Ma-ancel, and the third in Catmon, of which
parcels he was the owner and possessor since 1915 by acquisition from Rufina Medel, who in turn
acquired the land in the sitio of Lacdawen from her father-in-law Mariano Ortega as dowry when she
married, that in the sitio of Ma-ancel by inheritance from her mother (that of Rufina Medel), and that
in the sitio of Catmon, the boundaries of which were mentioned but not the respective cardinal
points, by purchase from Julio Bajalaldia about twenty years ago, said Medel being then newly
married, this fact being also known to the witness because he had been working with them and
Medel had requested him to gather the coconuts in order to pay to Bajalaldia the price of the said
parcel, and he himself, who was then a laborer working for Rufina Medel, personally delivered the
price of the vendor, the first delivery being for P20 and the second for P15, without any receipt
having been given by Bajalaldia for he stated that he did not know how to write; that from the time of
the possession of Rufina Medel he himself took care of said land and gathered the coconuts
thereon, and since 1915 Francisco Lunsod put him in charge thereof ordering him to gather the fruits
which he had done six times; that the parcel in Lacdawen was, during the lifetime of Mariano Ortega,
in the latter's possession and they gathered the fruits thereon; that from the very first time that he
knew the parcel in Ma-ancel he saw Rufina Medel and her husband in possession thereof, the
witness also naming the boundaries but not the respective cardinal points; that the owner of the
parcel in Lacdawen was the father of Sinforoso Ortega and the person taking care of the three
parcels on the date on which he testified was the same Sinforoso Ortega since June, 1916, when he
seized the lands from Francisco Lunsod; and finally that he, the witness, as the overseer or
watchman of Lunsod, had a share of one-fifth in the fruits gathered on said parcels and was
interested in securing the possession of the land for Lunsod.
The evidence adduced by both parties being considered, we arrive at the conclusion that there is no
reason why we should not give credit to the testimony of the witnesses for the plaintiffs, relative to
the statements in the documents presented by them, with respect to the relationship between said
plaintiffs Sinforoso Ortega and Francisca Ortega and the deceased Mariano Ortega, Estanislao
Ortega and his daughter, Anacleta Ortega, born of the marriage with Rufina Medel, who also died at
a tender age, one year after her father Estanislao, as well as with respect to the quiet, peaceful, and
uninterrupted possession which they enjoyed since about thirty years ago of the three parcels in
question, first, through Mariano Ortega and later, upon his death, through his children Sinforoso,
Francisca and Estanislao, and upon the latter's death through Rufina Medel, mother of Anacleta
Ortega, together with her brother and sister-in-law Sinforoso and Francisca, respectively, which
possession was, upon the death of Anacleta, held by said three persons until June 3, 1915, when

the mother of the latter, Rufina Medel, sold said three parcels to Francisco Lunsod with the right to
repurchase. Said witnesses, two of whom are 65 years of age and adjoining owners with respect to
said lands, had shown complete knowledge of those facts and explained the reasons why they
respectively knew what they had testified to.
On the other hand, while it is true that from the testimony given by the witnesses for the defendants
it appears that they had attempted to prove the sole and exclusive title of Rufina Medel to said three
parcels and her possession thereof as owner when she sold them on said date, June 3, 1915, to
Francisco Lunsod, said witnesses tracing said possession to an original different from that claimed
by the plaintiffs, yet the following facts must be observed in analyzing said declarations:
(1) Francisco Lunsod himself did not know from whom Rufina Medel acquired said parcels. He knew
that she owned them only from the real estate tax declaration presented by her in the municipality of
San Pablo for the purposes of taxation and by the real estate tax receipts issued to her on May 31,
1917, on which date she was already dead, and in which receipt the two parcels situated in the
barrio of Sta. Catalina, municipality of San Pablo, are only vaguely and generally mentioned. These
documents, as may be seen, are not and cannot be considered as evidence of title, as has
repeatedly been held by this court in similar cases. Besides, it must also be remembered that in
1915 said lands had been placed in the assessment list in her own name by Rufina Medel after the
death of her daughter Anacleta Ortega, who was the owner thereof, as heir of her deceased father
Estanislao Ortega, when, according to the testimony of the witnesses for the plaintiffs, she and the
plaintiffs, her brother and sister-in-law, were in joint possession of said real property. This fact also
explains why Rufina Medel in June of said year was able to effect the sale of those three parcels,
with the right to repurchase, in favor of Francisco Lunsod as if she were the lawful and exclusive
owner thereof, although with the condition inserted in the corresponding documents that she, the
vendor, would take care and clean said parcels in consideration of a third party of the coconuts that
might be gathered during the term of the repurchase, a circumstance which may have caused the
Ortega brother, who participated with her in the possession thereof, not to note that she had
conveyed said parcels with pacto de retro to said Lunsod.
(2) Rufina Medel being in charge of the cleaning and watching of said parcels at said compensation
it is strange that Cipriano Medel should also be the overseer of Lunsod, as stated by the latter, and
this is particularly so, because said Cipriano Medel in his testimony was not asked by the attorney
for the defendants on this point and did not make any statement whatever about it; on the other hand
it is not strange that Catalino Alaguilan Segundo should have declared that he was the watchman of
Lunsod and furthermore, that he participated to the extent of one-fifth of the fruits collected on said
parcels, for the reason that said person, according to his testimony, had been working for Rufina
Medel and had taken care of said parcels and gathered the fruits thereon since the time of Rufina
Medel; the result, therefore, is that, although it may be true that Rufina Medel on June 3, 1915, had
sold the lands with pacto de retro to Francisco Lunsod, as appears from the document already
mentioned, the testimony of said Alaguilan Segundo does not prove that the plaintiffs were not,
jointly with Rufina Medel, in possession of said parcels on the date when according to Francisco
Lunsod, he was turned out of said possession by Sinforoso Ortega and this is the more so when it is
considered that, according to Lunsod himself, the person who gathered the coconuts on said parcels
was his representative, Cipriano Medel, and his watchman Alaguilan Segundo, he (Lunsod) having
gone to the land only a few times, which he could not exactly determine, and that he also left that
work to Rufina Medel during her lifetime. It is thus seen quite clearly why the plaintiffs Sinforoso and
Francisca Ortega were completely ignorant of the fact that Rufina Medel had sold said parcels to
Francisco Lunsod, and were unable to know that said Lunsod claimed to be in possession of said
lands.
(3) Cipriano Medel did not remember the boundaries of the parcel in Ma-ancel and could not state
how many coconut trees there were on it, because he had not seen it although he stated that parcel
was purchased from Mariano Ortega by his parents and sisters Jacoba and Rufina Medel; and as he
must have known everything relative to the three parcels for, according to him and his sister Jacoba,
they inherited them from their other sister, now deceased, Rufina Medel, he mentioned a parcel in
the sitio of Duhat as the parcel by her from Julio Bajalaldia, about which parcel nothing was said by
the other witness Catalino Alaguilan Segundo or appears in the record, said Alaguilan Segundo
having, in turn, stated that what was purchased by Rufina Medel from Julio Bajalaldia was the parcel
in the sitio of Catmon. The result s that as these two witnesses contradict themselves upon this point

nothing certain is proved as to the acquisition of said parcels; and said Alaguilan Segundo being,
according to his own statement, the overseer of said parcel of Rufina Medel since the latter was
married and prior to the year 1915, he having succeeded Francisco Lunsod, and having about
twenty years ago, as laborer of Rufina Medel, taken to Julio Bajalaldia the payment of the price of
the parcel in Catmon and having, furthermore, as overseer and watchman of Lunsod with a right to a
share of one-fifth of the fruits, collected six times, as stated by him, the fruit of the coconut trees
planted thereon, it is at the same time strange that he was the owner of the lands adjoining the
parcels in Catmon and Lacdawen about which he has been examined, not having been asked with
respect to the boundaries and owners of the properties adjoining the land at Ma-ancel.
(4) The same parcel in the sitio of Ma-ancel was, according to Alaguilan Segundo, acquired by
Rufina Medel from her mother through inheritance, which is contrary to the testimony of Cipriano
Medel, who testified, as already stated, that said parcel was purchased by her parents from Mariano
Ortega; and said Alaguilan Segundo has also said that Rufina Medel acquired the parcel in
Lacdawen from her father-in-law Mariano Ortega as dowry when she married, while Cipriano Medel
only stated that parcel was not purchased by Rufina Medel from anybody but did not state how she
acquired it, notwithstanding that he and his sister Jacoba claimed that they acquired the ownership
thereof by inheritance from their deceased sister Rufina.
(5) Francisco Baldonado being a laborer, as stated by him, it is likewise strange that he had four
times purchased coconuts, gathered on said parcels, from the overseer Cipriano Medel, and twice
from Lunsod himself, that is, six times in all, as if he were a merchant or business man. It is also
doubtful that said witness was present when Sinforoso Ortega suspended the operation of the
collection of the fruits on the first days of June, 1916, threatening to wound those who were engaged
in that work, because he did not remember the boundaries of the land as to which said suspension
was ordered or the number or coconuts gathered or that of the coconut trees planted upon the land,
and, on the other hand, Cipriano Medel himself in his testimony did not state anything about his
having sold at any time the coconut gathered on said lands, as overseer of Francisco Lunsod, nor
about Sinforoso Ortega having threatened to injure those who were engaged in the gathering of the
fruits; said witness only stated that in 1916 Ortega seized said parcels from Lunsod, prohibited the
latter from gathering the coconuts on the land or from interfering with them on the ground that he
(Ortega) was their owner, which statement indicates that Lunsod was present when said prohibition
was made, and this is aside from the fact that what has been stated by Alaguilan Segundo clearly
leads to the inference that he, and not Cipriano Medel, was the person who, as overseer and
watchman of the land of Lunsod, for he was entitled to a share of one-fifth of the fruits, gathered the
coconuts by order of Lunsod himself, an operation which according to him, was effected about six
times, which must be the same occasions refereed to by the witness Baldonado when, according to
him, he bought coconuts from Cipriano Medel, for according to Lunsod himself he had gathered
fruits six times a year and that year was from June, 1915, when he bought the parcels from Rufina
Medel, to June, 1916, when according to the complaint, he was distributed in the possession thereof.
Alaguilan Segundo also did not state that when Sinforoso Ortega seized said parcels in June , 1916,
from Lunsod, he threatened to attack with his bolo those who were gathering the fruits, nor did he
testify that they were then engaged in that task.
What has been said constitutes sufficient ground for not giving any credence to the allegation of the
defendants and appellants and the testimony of their witnesses that said defendants owned and
possessed the parcels in question. Upon the same ground it can also be held that the trial court did
not err in finding that the weight of the evidence markedly preponderates in favor of the theory that
the lands in question passed, through inheritance, upon the death of Mariano Ortega, father of
Sinforoso, Francisca and Estanislao Ortega, to the last named person who, with his wife Rufina
Medel, took possession thereof, and that, therefore said couple having had a daughter named
Anacleta Ortega, who inherited said three parcels upon the death of her father; upon the death of
said daughter on June 17, 1903, said three parcels of land passed by inheritance to her mother
Rufina Medel. To this it must also be added that it is likewise proven that Rufina Medel continued in
possession of said parcels jointly with the brother and sister of her deceased husband, who are
uncle and aunt, respectively, of her deceased daughter Anacleta, and who are the appellees
Sinforoso Ortega and Francisca Ortega, and that she was in such joint possession on June 3, 1915,
when she sold said parcels with pacto de retro to Francisco Lunsod who, notwithstanding said sale,
was not in possession thereof in June, 1916, the date when, according to him he was turned out of
said possession by Sinforoso Ortega, by reason of which facts we cannot hold that the acts

indicative of that possession and testified to by Lunsod himself and his witnesses and the witnesses
of the other plaintiffs and appellees were duly proven.
Now, according to article 811 of the Civil Code an ascendant who inherits from a descendant any
property acquired by the latter gratuitously from some other ascendant, or from a brother or sister is
obliged to reserve such property as he may have acquired by operation of law in favor of the
relatives within the third degree belonging to the line from which such property came. In the decision
rendered in the case of Edroso vs. Sablan and Sablan (25 Phil., 295), in which the former, as heir of
her son, asked for the registration of certain property classified as reservable, the application having
been opposed by two legitimate uncles in their capacity as heirs of their nephew entitled to the
reservable property, and in which it was at the same time asked that, in case the application be
granted, the reservable character of the property in their favor be noted, this court, speaking through
the illustrious Chief Justice, Cayetano S. Arellano, now deceased, laid down the following:
ESTATE; DUTY OF ASCENDANT, WHO INHERITS THROUGH A DESCENDANT, TO
RESERVE THE PROPERTY IN ACCORDANCE WITH LAW; ARTICLE 811, CIVIL CODE.
Property which an ascendant inherits by operation of law from his descendant and which
was inherited by the latter from another ascendant of his, must be reserved by the ascendant
heir in favor of uncles of the descendant from whom the inheritance proceeded, who are his
father's brother, because they are relatives within the third degree, if they belong to the line
whence the property proceeded according to the provisions of article 811 of the Civil Code.
In the case at bar, Rufina Medel inherited by operation of law from her daughter Anacleta Ortega,
who died at the age of six years, the three parcels of land in question situated in the barrio of Sta.
Catalina in the municipality of San Pablo Province of Laguna, which parcels had been acquired by
said Anacleta Ortega gratuitously, that is to say, also by inheritance from an ascendant, who was her
father Estanislao Ortega, and said three parcels having come from Mariano Ortega, father of the
deceased Estanislao Ortega and the appellees Sinforoso and Francisco Ortega, who are therefore
relatives within the third degree of the child Anacleta Ortega, daughter of Estanislao Ortega, then
according to the provisions of said article 811, these pieces of land constitute reservable property in
favor of said Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega, uncle and aunt of the descendant's predecessor in
interest with respect to the property.
With respect to the rights and obligations of the person obliged to reserve in connection with the
reservable property mentioned in the same article, the discussion made by this court in the same
decision in quite clear and explicit, to wit:
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 rights 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 of
using and 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 persons 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 obscured
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 obligated 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 ascendant who inherits from a descendant, whether by the latter's wish or by operation
of law, acquires 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
consists in reducing the ascendant heir to the condition 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 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 only 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 ascendant
who holds the property required by article 811 to be reserved, and the father or mother
required by article 968 to reserve the right, can dispose of the property they inherit itself, the
former from his descendant and the latter from his or her child in first marriage, and recover
it from anyone who may unjustly detain it, while the persons in whose favor the right if
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 968 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 spouseafter 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 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
subsist 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 descendant of the first marriage in whose favor the rights
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 persons in whose favor the right is reserved and then there would be no reasons 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 every 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 ascendant mustmake
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 turnmay 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 articles 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 to 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 within 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 ascendant acquires that property with a condition subsequent, to wit, whether or not
there exist at the time of his death relatives within the third degree of the descendant 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 ascendant. If they do not exist, the
ascendant can freely dispose thereof. If this is true, since the possessor of property subject
to conditions subsequent can alienate and encumber it, the ascendant 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 that 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 acquire it and all the rest that has the

same character in complete ownership, in fee simple, because the condition and the usufruct
have been terminated by the death of the usufructuary." (Morell, Estudios sobre bienes
reservables, 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
his to alienation, 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 the right is reserved
cannot dispose of the property, first because it is in no way, either actually, constructively, or
formally, in their possession; and, moreover, because they have no title of ownership or of
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 descendant of whom
they are relatives within the third degree, that is 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 it may even
become absolute should that person die."
Careful consideration of the matter forces the conclusion that no act to 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 causain favor of
persons other than relatives within the third degree of the descendant 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.)
Practically, even in the opinion of those who reduce the person reserving the right to the
condition of a mere usufructuary, the person in whose favor it must be reserved cannot
attack the alienation that may be absolutely made of the property the law requires to be
reserved, in the present case, that which the applicant has made of the two parcels of land in
question to a third party, because the conditional alienation that is permitted her is equivalent
to an alienation 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 alienation 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 and 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 rights 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. . . .

It is, therefore, indisputable, in view of the preceding discussion made in the decision of this court
just cited, that the person obliged to reserve, that is, Rufina Medel, heir of her daughter Anacleta
Ortega, was not only a usufructuary but also the owner in fee simple of the three parcels of land in
question, notwithstanding the fact that they have the character of reservable property in favor of
Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega, relatives within the third degree of said Anacleta Ortega and
belonging to the line from which such property came, and, in her capacity as such, she could have,
as she did, sold with the right to repurchase on June 3, 1915, said three parcels to Francisco
Lunsod; but it is also indisputable that Rufina Medel acquired these parcels subject to a resolutory
condition, that is to say, her ownership of said property was subject to said condition, to wit, that
there should or should not exist at the time of her death relatives of Anacleta Ortega from whom she
inherited said property, included within the third degree and belonging to the line from which said
property came, by virtue of which condition said property was impressed with the reservable
character, according to the provision of article 811 of the Civil Code, and therefore she could not
have effected said sale without saving the rights of the persons entitled to have the property
reserved to them, by securing to the latter the value thereof, according to the provision of article 974
and 975 of the Civil Code in connection with article 109 of the Mortgage Law and in the manner
established in this article, the provisions of the first two articles being applicable by analogy to
reservable property mentioned in article 811 of the Civil Code to which reference has already been
made.
Rufina Medel not having complied with the provisions of said article in effecting the sale of said
parcels in favor of Francisco Lunsod, inasmuch as the document executed for the purpose was not
recorded in the registry of property, and she could not, therefore, have made in the corresponding
record the express reservation of the right of Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega over said property, and
said Rufina Medel not having even mentioned in said document the fact that said property was
reservable, said alienation is void and can have no effect as against the persons entitled to have
such property reserved, who are Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega. And Rufina Medel having died on
April 10, 1916, leaving as her survivors the persons already mentioned and entitled to have the
property reserved in their favor, and the condition attached to the title to said parcels having thus
been resolved, said parcels became the absolute and exclusive property of the same persons
entitled to have said property reserved as relatives within the third degree of Anacleta Ortega and
belonging to the line from which said property came.
Rufina Medel not having acquired said parcels before her death in fee simple and without the
limitation which characterizes them as reservable property, for the reason that Sinforoso and
Francisca Ortega, who were entitled to have such parcels reserved, survived her, it is obvious that
the brother and sister of the former, Cipriano and Jacoba Medel did not, as they claim acquire said
parcels by inheritance from said deceased, and, consequently, they have no right to have said
property registered in the registry of deeds in their name and the opposition to said registration
presented by Francisco Lunsod in said case No. 219 is, therefore, groundless.
The three parcels referred to not being, therefore property of the conjugal partnership of the
deceased Estanislao Ortega and Rufina Medel, but the separate and exclusive property of the
former, since he acquired them gratuitously from his father Mariano Ortega, the title thereof passing
afterwards to their daughter Anacleta Ortega, and, upon the latter's death, to Rufina Medel by
inheritance from Anacleta, with the character of reservable property in favor of Sinforoso and
Francisca Ortega, who acquired the absolute title thereto by virtue of said character, the exclusion,
ordered by the court, of said property from the inventory presented by the administrator Cipriano
Medel in the intestate proceedings for the settlement of the estate of Rufina Medel, case No. 2218,
was proper.
With respect to the possession of said parcels claimed by Francisco Lunsod of which, he alleges, he
was deprived by Sinforoso Ortega in June or July, 1916, these facts were nor proved at the trial, as
already stated, but, on the contrary, it was proven that Rufina Medel continued in said possession in
which, in some way or another, her brother and sister-in-law, Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega, the
persons entitled to have the property reserved in their favor, participated, although Rufina Medel,
according to the document of June 3, 1915, had already sold said parcels to Lunsod with the right to
repurchase, and therefore the remedy prayed for by the latter in his complaint in the Court of First
Instance, which is a reproduction of the one previously filed in the court of the justice of the peace of
San Pablo, and docketed there as case No. 2322, is improper and groundless.

What has been said knows that the trial court did not commit errors Nos. 6, 8, and 9 assigned by the
appellants in their brief; neither did the court below commit the 7th error, for the judgment appealed
from, there are set forth the conclusions arrived at by the trial judge with respect to the points in
issue and which his Honor considered proved, it being there stated, at the same time, that the
preponderance of the evidence is notably in favor of the theory maintained by the appellees
Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega.
For the foregoing reasons the judgment appealed from is affirmed with the addition that Sinforoso
Ortega is absolved from the complaint filed against him by Francisco Lunsod on May 9, 1917, and
docketed as case No. 2322, for unlawful entry and detainer; and the opposition of said Lunsod to the
application of Cipriano and Jacoba Medel for registry of deeds is dismissed, and the opposition
entered by Sinforoso and Francisca Ortega to said registration is sustained, with the costs of first
instance as ordered in the judgment appealed from, and the costs of this instance against the
appellants. So ordered.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-25039

March 2, 1926

VICENTE TUAZON, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
HERMOGENES REYES, Judge of the Court of First Instance of Pampanga, and ROBERTO
SIOCHI,respondents.
Santos & Benitez for petitioner.
The respondent judge in his own behalf.
Juan Bernales for the other respondent.
OSTRAND, J.:
This is a petition for a writ of certiorari upon the following facts: In an action bought by Roberto
Siochi against Petronilo David et al. for the partition of a track of land. this court in a decision
promulgated January 8, 1919, ordered the partition in equal shares between the plaintiff and the
defendant Petronilo David of some 15 hectares of the land an d the case was ordered returned to
the Court of First Instance for further proceedings in accordance with sections 184 et seq. of the
Code of Civil Procedure.1
Commissioners of partition were thereupon appointed but for reasons which do not clearly appear,
they did not take immediate action in the matter and in the meantime, Petronilo David obtained
Torrens certificates of title for the land in cadastral case No. 10 of the Province of Pampanga and, on
July 30, 1921, sold the land to the petitioner herein, Vicente Tuazon, the deed containing a recital to
the effect that of the land so sold as area of 7 hectares and 50 ares was in dispute between the
vendor and Roberto Siochi and that the purchaser Vicente Tuazon was merely subrogated to the
rights and obligations of the vendor in relation to said disputed portion and that said vendor did
warrant the title to the same. Thereafter transfer certificates of title were issued in favor of Vicente
Tuazon on March 8, 1923, but through the negligence of the register of deeds the reservation made
in regard to the land in dispute with Siochi was not entered upon the certificate of title.
Thereafter, on December 26, 1923, Tuazon presented to the Court of First Instance of Pampanga, a
written protest against the partition of the ground that he held Torrens certificates of title to all the
land and by reason of said protest the Honorable Guillermo Guevara, Judge of that court, after
requiring the production in court of the petitioner's transfer certificates of title, set aside the order of
partition and revoked the appointment of the commissioners in an order dated February 4, 1924. A
motion for reconsideration was filed by Siochi and on July 7, 1924, the herein respondent the
Honorable Hermogenes Reyes, then Judge of the Court of First Instance of Pampanga, revoked the
order of his predecessor and ordered the commissioners to execute the partition of the land.
In compliance with the order of Judge Reyes, the commissioners presented their report adjudicating
to Siochi his share of the land in dispute which report was duly approved by said judge. Tuazon
refused to deliver possession to Siochi of the land awarded the latter and, on April 1, 1925, the
respondent judge issued an order directing that Siochi be placed in possession of the land
adjudicated to him.
This action was thereupon brought the petitioner maintaining that not being a party to the original
action his title was not affected by the partition proceedings and that therefore the order of April 1,
1925, directing that Siochi be placed in possession of the portion adjudicated to him in said
proceeding was beyond the jurisdiction of the court.
A purchaser of registered land who takes a certificate of title for value in good faith holds an
indefeasible title to the land and is such was the case here the petitioner's contention would be

perfectly valid. But there the element of good faith is lacking. The defendant acquired his title while
the partition proceedings were pending and his title is therefore subject to the incidents and results
of the pending litigation and is no better than that of the vendor in whose shoes he now stands. In
these circumstances, the petitioner's transfer certificates of title can afford him no special protection.
The deed under which the title was acquired expressly recites that the land was in dispute and that
as to the disputed portion only the interest of the vendor was conveyed. In ordering the execution of
the judgment of partition the respondent judge did therefore not exceed his jurisdiction and a writ
of certiorari will not lie.
During the pendency of this action, the respondent Siochi appears to have executed a deed for the
land in question in favor of Rafael and Felipe David who have now filed a petition for intervention is
unnecessary and the petition therefor is denied, but upon cancellation and the transfer of certificates
of title Nos. 617 and 618 now held by the petitioner Vicente Tuazon and upon presentation to the
register of deeds for the deed executed by Siochi in favor of Rafael and Felipe David, together with a
technical description of the segregated portion of the land approved by the General Land
Registration Office, transfer certificate of the title may be issued direct to said Rafael and Felipe
David in accordance with the deed without previous issuance of such certificate to Roberto Siochi in
the partition proceedings embraces portions of two cadastral lots, Nos. 4166 and 4173, it will be
necessary to subdivide said lots in conformity with the provisions of section 6 of Act No. 2259.
For the reasons stated the petition for a writ of certiorari is hereby denied with the costs against the
petitioner. The preliminary injunction hereinbefore issued is dissolved without prejudice to the
respondent Siochi's claim for damages suffered by virtue of the issuance of said injunction. Let
transfer certificates of title Nos. 617 and 618 of the registry of deeds of the Province of Pampanga
be detached for cancellation and issuance of new certificates with properly approved technical
description in accordance with the result of the partition proceedings. So ordered.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
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 aftercontracting 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 beenassured, 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.)
Practically, even in the opinion of those who reduce the person reserving the right to the condition of
a mere usufructuary, the person in whose favor it must be reserved cannot attack the alienation that
may be absolutely made of the property the law requires to be reserved, in the present case, that
which the appellant has made of the two parcels of land in question to a third party, because the
conditional alienation that is permitted her is equivalent to an alienation 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:
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.
Therefore, we reverse the judgment appealed from, and in lieu thereof decide and declare that the
applicant is entitled to register in her own name the two parcels of land which are the subject matter
of the applicants, recording in the registration the right required by article 811 to be reserved to either
or both of the opponents, Pablo Sablan and Basilio Sablan, should they survive her; without special
findings as to costs.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-23770

February 18, 1926

MAGIN RIOSA, plaintiff-appellant,

vs.
PABLO ROCHA, MARCELINA CASAS, MARIA CORRAL and CONSOLACION R. DE
CALLEJA, defendants-appellees.
Domingo Imperial for appellant
Mariano Locsin for appellees.
AVANCEA, C.J.:
Maria Corral was united in marriage with the deceased Mariano Riosa, it being her first and only
marriage and during which time she bore him three children named Santiago, Jose and Severina.
The latter died during infancy and the other two survived their father, Mariano Riosa. Santiago Riosa,
no deceased, married Francisca Villanueva, who bore him two children named Magin and
Consolacion Riosa. Jose Riosa, also deceased, married Marcelina Casas and they had one child
who died before the father, the latter therefore leaving no issue. Mariano Riosa left a will dividing his
property between his two children, Santiago and Jose Riosa, giving the latter the eleven parcels of
land described in the complaint. Upon the death of Jose Riosa he left a will in which he named his
wife, Marcelina Casas, as his only heir.
On May 16, 1917, the will of Jose Riosa was filed for probate. Notwithstanding the fact that
Marcelina Casas was the only heir named in the will, on account of the preterition of Maria Corral
who, being the mother of Jose Riosa, was his legitimate heir, I Marcelina Casas and Maria Corral, on
the same date of the filing of the will for probate, entered into a contract by which they divided
between themselves the property left by Jose Riosa, the eleven parcels of land described in the
complaint being assigned to Maria Corral.
On October 26, 1920, Maria Corral sold parcels Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 and 11 to Marcelina Casas
for the sum of P20,000 in a public instrument which was recorded in the registry of deeds on
November 6, 1920. On November 3, 1920, Marcelina Casas sold these eight parcels of land to
Pablo Rocha for the sum of P60,000 in a public document which was recorded in the registry of
deeds on November 6, 1920. On September 24, 1921, Pablo Rocha returned parcels No. 1, 2, 3, 4,
and 6 to Maria Corral stating in the deed executed for the purpose that these parcels of land had
been erroneously included in the sale made by Maria Corral to Marcelina Casas.
The Court of first Instance denied the probate of the will of Jose Riosa, but on appeal this court
reversed the decision of the lower court and allowed the will to probate. 1 The legal proceedings for
the probate of the will and the settlement of the testate estate of Jose Riosa were followed; and, at
the time of the partition, Maria Corral and Marcelina Casas submitted to the court the contract of
extrajudicial partition which they had entered into on May 16, 1917, and which was approved by the
court, by order of November 12, 1920, as though it had been made within the said testamentary
proceedings.
From the foregoing is appears that the eleven parcels of land described in the complaint were
acquired by Jose Riosa, by lucrative title, from his father Mariano Riosa and that after the death of
Jose Riosa, by operation of law, they passed to his mother Maria Corral. By virtue of article 811 of
the Civil Code these eleven parcels of land are reservable property. It results, furthermore, that
parcels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 still belong in fee simple to Maria Corral, and that parcels 10 and
11 were successively sold by Maria Corral to Marcelina Casas and by the latter to Pablo Rocha.
Lastly, it appears that Magin and Consolacion Riosa are the nearest relatives within the third degree
of the line from which this property came.

This action was brought by Magin Riosa, for whom the property should have been reserved, against
Maria Corral, whose duty it was to reserve it, and against Marcelina Casas and Pablo Rocha as
purchasers of parcels 10 and 11. Consolacion Riosa de Calleja who was also bound to make the
reservation was included as a defendant as she refused to join as plaintiff.
The complaint prays that the property therein described be declared reservable property and that the
plaintiffs Jose and Consolacion Riosa be declared reservees; that this reservation be noted in the
registry of deeds; that the sale of parcels 10 and 11 to Marcelina Casas and Pablo Rocha be
declared valid only in so far as it saves the right of reservation in favor of the plaintiff Magin Riosa
and of the defendant Consolacion Riosa, and that this right of reservation be also noted on the
deeds of sale executed in favor of Marcelina Casas and Pablo Rocha; that Maria Corral, Marcelina
Casas and Pablo Rocha give a bond of P50,000, with good and sufficient sureties, in favor of the
reservees as surety for the conservation and maintenance of the improvements existing on the said
reservable property. The dispositive part of the court's decision reads as follows:
For the foregoing reasons it is held:
1. That the eleven parcels of land described in paragraph 6 of the complaint have the
character of reservable property; 2. That the defendant Maria Corral, being compelled to
make the reservation, must reserve them in favor of the plaintiff Magin Riosa and the
defendant Consolacion Riosa de Calleja in case that either of these should survive her; 3.
That Magin Riosa and Consolacion Riosa de Calleja have the right, in case that Maria Corral
should die before them, to receive the said parcels or their equivalent.
In virtue whereof, the defendant Maria Corral is ordered: 1. To acknowledge the right of
Magin Riosa and Consolacion Riosa de Calleja to the reservation of the said parcels of lands
described in the complaint, which she shall expressly record in the registration of said lands
in the office of the register of deeds of this province; 2. To insure the delivery of said parcels
of lands, or their equivalent, to Magin Riosa and Consolacion Riosa de Calleja, should either
of them survive her, either by a mortgage thereon or by a bond in the amount of P30,000,
without express pronouncement as to costs.
The other defendants are absolved from the complaint.
Inasmuch as the reservation from its inception imposes obligations upon the reservor
(reservista) and creates rights in favor of the reservation (reservatarios) it is of the utmost
importance to determine the time when the land acquired the character of reservable property.
It will be remembered that on May 16, 1917, Maria Corral and Marcelina Casas entered into a
contract of extrajudicial partition of the property left by Jose Riosa, in which they assigned to Maria
Corral, as her legitime, the parcels of land here in question, and at the same time petitioned for the
probate of the will of Jose Riosa and instituted the testamentary proceeding. In support of the legality
of the extrajudicial partition between Maria Corral and Marcelina Casas the provision of section 596
of the Code of Civil Procedure is invoked, which authorizes the heirs of a person dying without a will
to make a partition without the intervention of the courts whenever the heirs are all of age and the
deceased has left no debts. But this legal provisions refers expressly to intestate estates and, of
course, excludes testate estates like the one now before us.
When the deceased has left a will the partition of his property must be made in accordance
therewith. According to section 625 of the same Code no will can pass property until it is probated.
And even after being probated it cannot pass any property if its provisions impair the legitime fixed
by law in favor of certain heirs. Therefore, the probate of the will and the validity of the testamentary
provisions must be passed upon by the court.
For the reasons stated, and without making any express finding as to the efficacy of the extrajudicial
partition made by Maria Corral and Marcelina Casas, we hold that for the purposes of the
reservation and the rights and obligations arising thereunder in connection with the favored relatives,
the property cannot be considered as having passed to Maria Corral but from the date when the said
partition was approved by the court, that is, on November 12, 1920. In the case of Pavia vs. De la
Rosa (8 Phil., 70), this court laid down the same doctrine in the following language:

The provisions of Act No. 190 (Code of Civil Procedure) have annulled the provisions of
article 1003 and others of the Civil Code with regard to the pure or simple acceptance of the
inheritance of a deceased person or that made with benefit of inventory and the
consequences thereof.
xxx

xxx

xxx

The heir legally succeeds the deceased from whom he derives his right and title, but only
after the liquidation of the estate, the payment of the debts of same, and the adjudication of
the residue of the estate of the deceased, and in the meantime the only person in charge by
law to attend to all claims against the estate of the deceased debtor is the executor or
administrator appointed by a competent court.
As has been indicated, parcels 10 and 11 described in the complaint were first sold by Maria Corral
to Marcelina Casas who later sold them to Pablo Rocha. In this appeal it is urged that Marcelina
Casas and Pablo Rocha, who were absolved by the court below, be ordered to acknowledge the
reservation as to parcels 10 and 11, acquired by them, and to have the said reservation noted on
their titles. This argument, of course, is useless as to Marcelina Casas for the reason that she
transferred all her rights to Pablo Rocha.
It has been held by jurisprudence that the provisions of the law referred to in article 868 tending to
assure the efficacy of the reservation by the surviving spouse are applicable to the reservation
known as "reserva troncal," referred to in article 811, which is the reservation now under
consideration.
In accordance with article 977, Maria Corral, reservor, is obliged to have the reservation noted in the
registry of deeds in accordance with the provisions of the Mortgage Law which fixes the period of
ninety days for accomplishing it (article 199, in relation with article 191, of the Mortgage Law).
According to article 203 of the General Regulation for the application of the Mortgage Law, this time
must be computed from the acceptance of the inheritance. But as this portion of the Civil Code,
regarding the acceptance of the inheritance, has been repealed, the time, as has been indicated,
must be computed from the adjudication of the property by the court to the heirs, in line with the
decision of this court hereinabove quoted. After the expiration of this period the reservees may
demand compliance with this obligation.
If Maria Corral had not transferred parcels 10 and 11 to another there would be no doubt that she
could be compelled to cause the reservable character of this property to be noted in the registry of
deeds. This land having been sold to Marcelina Casas who, in turn, sold it to Pablo Rocha the
question arises whether the latter can be compelled to have this reservation noted on his title. This
acquisition by Pablo Rocha took place when it was the duty of Maria Corral to make the notation of
the reservation in the registry and at the time when the reservees had no right to compel Maria
Corral to make such notation, because this acquisition was made before the expiration of the period
of ninety days from November 12, 1920, the date of the adjudication by the court, after which the
right of the reservees to commence an action for the fulfillment of the obligation arose. But the land
first passed to Marcelina Casas and later to Pablo Rocha together with the obligation that the law
imposes upon Maria Corral. They could not have acquired a better title than that held by Maria
Corral and if the latter's title was limited by the reservation and the obligation to note it in the registry
of deeds, this same limitation is attached to the right acquired by Marcelina Casas and Pablo Rocha.
In the transmission of reservable property the law imposes the reservation as a resolutory condition
for the benefit of the reservees (article 975, Civil Code). The fact that the resolvable character of the
property was not recorded in the registry of deed at the time that it was acquired by Marcelina Casas
and Pablo Rocha cannot affect the right of the reservees, for the reason that the transfers were
made at the time when it was the obligation of the reservor to note only such reservation and the
reservees did not them have any right to compel her to fulfill such an obligation.
Marcelina Casas, as well as Pablo Rocha, Knew of the reservable character of the property when
they bought it. They had knowledge of the provisions of the last will and testament of Mariano Riosa
by virtue of which these parcels were transferred to Jose Riosa. Pablo Rocha was one of the
legatees in the will. Marcelina Casas was the one who entered into the contract of partition with

Maria Corral, whereby these parcels were adjudicated to the latter, as a legitimate heir of Jose
Riosa. Pablo Rocha was the very person who drafted the contracts of sale of these parcels of land
by Maria Corral to Marcelina Casas and by the latter to himself. These facts, together with the
relationship existing between Maria Corral and Marcelina Casas and Pablo Rocha, the former a
daughter-in-law and the latter a nephew of Maria Corral, amply support the conclusion that both of
them knew that these parcels of land had been inherited by Maria Corral, as her legitime from her
son Jose Riosa who had inherited them, by will, from his father Mariano Riosa, and were reservable
property. Wherefore, the duty of Maria Corral of recording the reservable character of lots 10 and 11
has been transferred to Pablo Rocha and the reservees have an action against him to compel him to
comply with this obligation.
The appellant also claims that the obligation imposed upon Maria Corral of insuring the return of
these parcels of land, or their value, to the reservees by means of a mortgage or a bond in the
amount of P30,000, also applies to Pablo Rocha. The law does not require that the reservor give this
security, the recording of the reservation in the registry of deeds being sufficient (art. 977 of the Civil
Code). There is no ground for this requirement inasmuch as, the notation once is made, the property
will answer for the efficacy of the reservation. This security for the value of the property is required
by law (art. 978, paragraph 4, of the Civil Code) in the case of a reservation by the surviving spouse
when the property has been sold before acquiring the reservable character (art 968 of the Civil
Code), but is not applicable to reservation known as reserva troncal (art 811 of the Civil Code). In the
case of Dizon and Dizon vs. Galang (page 601, ante), this court held that:
* * * As already intimated, the provisions of the law tending to give efficacy to a reservation
by the widowed spouse mentioned in article 968 are applicable to the reserva
troncal provided for in article 811. But as these two reservations vary in some respects, these
rules may be applied to the reserva troncal only in so far as the latter is similar to a
reservation by the widowed spouse. In the reserva troncal the property goes to the reservor
as reservable property and it remains so until the reservation takes place or is extinguished.
In a reservation by the widowed spouse there are two distinct stages, one when the property
goes to the widower without being reservable, and the other when the widower contracts a
second marriage, whereupon the property, which theretofore has been in his possession free
of any encumbrance, becomes reservable. These two stages also affect differently the
transfer that may be made of the property. If the property is sold during the first stage, before
becoming reservable, it is absolutely free and is transferred to the purchaser unencumbered.
But if the sale is made during the second stage, that is, when the duty to reserve has arisen,
the property goes to the purchaser subject to the reservation, without prejudice to the
provisions of the Mortgage Law. This is the reason why the law provides that should the
property be sold before it becomes reservable, or before the widower contracts another
marriage, he will be compelled to secure the value of the property by a mortgage upon
contracting a new marriage, so that the reservation may not lose its efficacy and that the
rights of those for whom the reservation is made may be assured. This mortgage is not
required by law when the sale is made after the reservation will follow the property, without
prejudice to the contrary provisions of the Mortgage Law and the rights of innocent
purchasers, there being no need to secure the value of the property since it is liable for the
efficacy of the reservation by a widowed spouse to secure the value of the property sold by
the widower, before becoming reservable are not applicable to the reserva troncal where the
property goes to the ascendant already reservable in character. A sale in the case ofreserva
troncal might be analogous to a sale made by the widower after contacting a second
marriage in the case of a reservation by the widowed spouse.
Since Maria Corral did not appeal, we cannot modify the appealed judgment in so far as it is
unfavorable to her. As she has been ordered to record in the registry the reservable character of the
other parcels of land, the subject of this action, the questions raised by the appellant as to her are
decided.
The judgment appealed from is modified and Pablo Rocha is ordered to record in the registry of
deeds the reservable character of parcels 10 11, the subject of this complaint, without special
pronouncement as to costs. So ordered.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
SECOND DIVISION
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.:

1wph1.t

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:
1wph1.t

(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:
1wph1.t

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.
1wph1.t

(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:
1wph1.t

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 theprepositus 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 extraas 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 Maalac. When Juliana died intestate in 1920,
said one-half share was inherited by her father, Anacleto Maalac 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 Maalac and, upon his
death, should be inherited by Leona Aglibot and Evarista Aglibot, sisters of Maria and materna aunts
of Juliana Maalac, who belonged to the line from which said one-half portion came (Aglibot vs.
Maalac 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).
1wph1.t

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 thereservista. (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 alreadyres 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 theprepositus, 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:
1wph1.t

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 areservatario (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 theFlorentino 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 nonexistence 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.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-13386

October 27, 1920

SEGUNDA MARIA NIEVA with her husband ANGEL ALCALA, plaintiffs-appellants,

vs.
MANUELA ALCALA and JOSE DEOCAMPO, defendants-appellees.
Eduardo Gutierrez Repide for appellants.
Felipe Agoncillo for appellees.

JOHNSON, J.:
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of the Province of Tayabas,
absolving the defendants from all liability under the plaintiff's complaint, without any finding as to
costs.
Juliana Nieva, the alleged natural mother of the plaintiff Segunda Maria Nieva, married Francisco
Deocampo. Of said marriage Alfeo Deocampo was born.
Julian Nieva died intestate on April 19, 1889, and her said son, Alfeo Deocampo, inherited from her,
ab intestate, the parcels of land described in Paragraphs V and X of the complaint.
Alfeo Deocampo died intestate and without issue on July 7, 1890. Thereupon the two parcels of land
above-mentioned passed to his father, Francisco Deocampo, by intestate succession. Thereafter
Francisco Deocampo married the herein defendant Manuela Alcala, of which marriage was born
Jose Deocampo, the other defendant herein.
Francisco Deocampo died on August 15, 1914, whereupon his widow and son, the defendants
herein, took possession of the parcels of land in question, under the claim that the said son, the
defendant Jose Deocampoo (a minor) had inherited the same, ab intestate, from his deceased
father.
On September 30, 1915, the plaintiff herein, claiming to be an acknowledged natural daughter of the
said Juliana Nieva, instituted the present action for the purposes of recovering from the defendants
the parcels of land in question, particularly described in Paragraphs V and X of the complaint,
invoking the provisions of article 811 of the Civil Code.
The lower court held that, even granting, without deciding, that the plaintiff was an acknowledged
natural daughter of Juliana Nieva, she was not entitled to the property here in question because, in
its opinion, an illegitimate relative has no right to the reserva troncal under the provisions of article
811 of the Civil Code.
The first question presented by this appeal is, whether or not the plaintiff is an acknowledged natural
daughter of the deceased Juliana Nieva. It appears from the record that the said Juliana Nieva, while
unmarried, gave birth to the plaintiff on March 29, 1882, and that the plaintiff was duly baptized as
her natural daughter, of unknown father (Exhibit C, baptismal certificate); that the said Juliana Nieva
nourished and reared her said child, the plaintiff herein; that the plaintiff lived with her said mother
until the latter was married to Francisco Deocampo; that the said mother treated the plaintiff, and
exhibited her publicly, as a legitimate daughter. (See testimony of Antero Gala, pp. 5-6; Prudencio de
la Cuesta, pp. 16-17; and Mamerto Palabrica, pp. 26-27, sten. notes.)

The foregoing facts, which are not controverted, are analogous to the facts in the case of Llorente
vs. Rodriguez (3 Phil., 697, 699). Under the decision of this court in that case we are of the opinion
and so decide, without rediscussing here the law and legal principles involved, that the plaintiff
Segunda Maria Nieva is an acknowledged natural daughter of Juliana Nieva. (See also In re estate
of Enriquez and Reyes, 29 Phil., 167.)
The other and more important question presented by this appeal is, whether or not
an illegitimate relative within the third degree is entitled to the reserva troncal provided for by article
811 of the Civil Code. That article reads as follows:
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.
The property here in question was inherited, by operation by law, by Francisco Deocampo from his
son Alfeo Deocampo, who, in turn, had inherited it, in the same manner, from his mother Juliana
Nieva, the natural mother of the plaintiff. The plaintiff is the natural sister of Alfeo Deocampo, and
she belongs to the same line from which the property in question came. Was Francisco Deocampo
obliged by law to reserve said property for the benefit of the plaintiff, an illegitimate relative within the
third degree of Alfeo Deocampo? If he was, then, upon his death, the plaintiff, and not his son the
defendant Jose Deocampo, was entitled to the said property; if he was not, the plaintiff's action must
fail.
1awph!l.net

There can be no question whatever but that, under said article 811 of the Civil Code, the plaintiff
would be entitled to the property in question if she were a legitimate daughter of Julian Nieva.
(Edroso vs. Sablan, 25 Phil., 295.) But in said article 811 the legislator uses the generic terms
"ascendant," "descendant," and "relatives," without specifying whether or not they have to be
legitimate. Does the legislator, then, refer to legitimate as well as to illegitimate relatives? Counsel
for the appellant, in a lengthy and carefully prepared brief, attempts to maintain the affirmative.
This question, so far as our investigation shows, has not been decided before by any court or
tribunal. However, eminent commentators on the Spanish Civil Code, who have devoted their lives to
the study and solution of the intricate and difficult problems that may arise under the provisions of
that Code, have dealt with the very question now before us, and are unanimous in the opinion that
the provision of article 811 of the Civil Code apply only tolegitimate relative. One of such
commentators, undoubtedly the best known of them all, is Manresa. We believe we can do no better
than to adopt his reasons and conclusions, in deciding the question before us. In determining the
persons who are obliged to reserve under article 811, he says:
Is every ascendant, whether legitimate or not, obliged to reserve? Should the natural father
or grandfather reserve the properties proceeding from the mother or other natural
ascendant? Article 811 does not distinguish; it speaks of the ascendant, without attaching the
qualification of legitimate, and, on the other hand, the same reason that exists for applying
the provision to the natural family exists for applying it to the legitimate family. Nevertheless,
the article in referring to the ascendant in an indeterminate manner shows that it imposes the
obligation to reserve only upon the legitimate ascendant.
Let us overlook for the moment the question whether the Code recognizes or does not
recognize the existence of the natural family, or whether it admits only the bond established
by acknowledgement between the father or mother who acknowledges and the
acknowledged children. However it may be, it may be stated as an indisputable truth, that in
said Code, the legitimate relationship forms the general rule and the natural relationship the
exception; which is the reason why, as may be easily seen, the law in many articles speaks
only of children or parents, of ascendants or descendants, and in them reference is of course
made of those who are legitimate; and when it desires to make a provision applicable only to
natural relationship, it does not say father or mother, but natural father or natural mother; it
does not say child, but natural child; it does not speak of ascendants, brothers or parents in
the abstract, but of natural ascendants, natural brothers or natural parents. (See, for
example, articles 294, 302, 809, 810, 846, 935, to 938, 944 and 945 and 946 to 955.)

Articles 809 and 810 themselves speak only of ascendants. Can it in any way be maintained
that they refer to legitimate as well as to natural ascendants? They evidently establish the
legitime of the legitimate ascendants included as forced heirs in number 2 of article 807. And
article 811, and as we will see also article 812, continues to treat of this same legitime.
The right of the natural parents and children in the testamentary succession in wholly
included in the eighth section and is limited to the parents, other ascendants of such class
being excluded in articles 807, No. 3, and 846. Therefore, the place which article 811
occupies in the Code of proof that it refers only to legitimate ascendants. And if there were
any doubt, it disappears upon considering the text of article 938, which states that the
provisions of article 811 applies to intestate succession, which is just established in favor of
the legitimate direct ascending line, the text of articles 939 to 945, which treat of intestate
succession of natural parents, as well as that of articles 840 to 847, treating of their
testamentary succession, which do not allude directly or indirectly to that provision.
Lastly, the principle which underlies the exception which article 811 creates in the right to
succeed neither admits of any other interpretation. Whether the provision is due to the desire
that the properties should not pass, by reason of new marriage, out of the family to which
they belonged, or is directly derived from the system of the so-called "reserva troncal," and
whether the idea of reservation or that of lineal rights (troncalidad) predominate the
patrimony which is intended to be preserved is that of the legitimate family. Only to legitimate
ascendants and descendants do article 968 et seq. of the Code refer, arising as they do from
the danger of second or subsequent marriage; only to legitimate parents do the special laws
of Navarra, Aragon, Vizcaya and Catalua concede the right to succeed with respect to lineal
properties (bienes troncales); only to the legitimate ascendants does article 811 impose the
duty to reserve.
The convenience of amplifying the precept to natural parents and ascendants may be raised
just as the question whether it would be preferable to suppress it altogether may be raised;
but in the realm of the statute law there is no remedy but to admit that article 811, the
interpretation of which should on the other hand be strict was drafted by the legislator with
respect only to legitimate ascendants. (Manresa, Codigo Civil, vol. 6, 3d ed., pp. 249-250.)
The same jurist, in determining the persons in whose favor the reservation is established, says:
Persons in whose favor the reservation is established. This is one of the most delicate
points in the interpretation of article 811. According to this article, the reservation is
established in favor of the parents who are within the third degree and belong to the line
from which the properties came.
It treats of blood, relationship, which is applicable to questions on succession, according to
articles 915 to 920. It could not be otherwise, because relationship by affinity is established
between each spouse and the family of the other, by marriage, and to admit it, would be to
favor the transmission of the properties of the family of one spouse to that of the other, which
is just what this article intends to prevent.
It also treats of legitimate relationship. The person obliged to reserve it a legitimate
ascendant who inherits from a descendant property which proceeds from the same
legitimate family, and this being true, there can be no question, because the line from which
the properties proceed must be the line of that family and only in favor of that line is the
reservation established. Furthermore, we have already said, the object is to protect the
patrimony of the legitimate family, following the precedents of the foral law. And it could not
be otherwise. Article 943 denies to legitimate parents the right to succeed the natural child
and viceversa, from which it must be deduced that natural parents neither have the right to
inhering from legitimate ones; the law in the article cited established a barrier between the
two families; properties of the legitimate family shall never pass by operation of law to the
natural family. (Ibid. pp. 251-252.)
Scvola, after a very extended discussion of this same subject, arrives at the same
conclusion as Manresa. "La reserva del articulo 811 es privilegio de la familia legitima. (The

reservation in article 811 is a privilege of the legitimate family.)" (See Scvola, Codigo Civil,
Vol. 14, pp. 211-224, 3401-305.)
Article 943, above referred to by Manresa, provides as follows:
A natural or legitimated child has no right to succeed ab intestate the legitimate children and
relatives of the father or mother who has acknowledged it; nor shall such children or relatives
so inherit from the natural or legitimated child.
To hold that the appellant is entitled to the property left by her natural brother, Alfeo Deocampo, by
operation of law, would be a fragrant violate of the express provision of the foregoing article (943).
For all of the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the lower court is hereby affirmed, without any
finding as to costs. So ordered.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-14856

November 15, 1919

ENCARNACION FLORENTINO, ET AL., plaintiffs-appellants,

vs.
MERCEDES FLORENTINO, ET AL., defendants-appellees.
Ramon Querubin, Simeon Ramos and Orense and Vera for appellants.
Vicente Foz, Jose Singsong Tongson and Angel Encarnacion for 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 fiftyeight 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 asreservatario 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.
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 onlyreservataria. 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.
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.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
FIRST DIVISION
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, defendantsappellants.

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 proindiviso 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 threeeights (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 onehalf 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 threefourths (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, T64167, 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 onlyreservatarios (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 troncalis 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. 489490; 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 thereversion legal of the Code of 1889 (Art. 812 and 968980).
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 (thepraepositus), 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. Ferraris 4 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.
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:
... . 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 thereservista. (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 thereservatario 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. Thereservatario 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 beingreservatarios 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. ... .
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.

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.