Gumban v. Gorecho
REITERATIONFacts
The Antecedents: Petronilo Gumban presented a document as the last will and testament of the deceased Eustaquio Hagoriles. The widow, Inocencia Gorecho, and eighteen other opponents contested the probate of this document. Procedural History: The Court of First Instance of Iloilo ordered the probate of the document. The opponents appealed this order. The Petition: The opponents assigned as error the trial court's finding that the alleged will was prepared in conformity with the law, specifically arguing that it lacked an attestation clause stating that the testator and witnesses signed all pages of the will.
Issue(s)
Whether the attestation clause, which omitted a recital that the testator and the witnesses signed each and every page of the will, sufficiently complied with the requirements of Section 618 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended.
Ruling
The order appealed from is reversed, and the document Exhibit A is disallowed as a will.
Ratio Decidendi
On Issue 1: The Supreme Court held that the attestation clause of the subject will did not sufficiently comply with the requirements of Section 618 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended. The Court recognized a fundamental variance between its previous decisions in Saño vs. Quintana, which held that an attestation clause must recite that the witnesses signed the will and each and every page thereof, and Nayve vs. Mojal and Aguilar, which allowed the fact of signing all pages to be proved by mere examination of the document itself, despite omission in the attestation clause. To resolve this conflict, the Court explicitly adopted and reaffirmed the decision in Saño vs. Quintana and, to the extent necessary, modified Nayve vs. Mojal and Aguilar. The Court reasoned that the Saño decision was supported by a clear majority of the justices, was subsequent in point of time, and conformed more nearly to the applicable provisions of the law. Section 618, as amended, and Section 634 of the Code of Civil Procedure use imperative and negative language, such as "No will...shall be valid...unless..." and "The will shall be disallowed in either of the following cases: 1. If not executed and attested as in this Act provided." This legislative intent, so emphatically expressed, demands strict compliance with the formal requirements of the attestation clause, including the explicit recital that the testator and witnesses signed all pages of the will. The Court emphasized that it is not within the province of the courts to disregard this clear legislative purpose. Although suspicious circumstances regarding the will's language and the testator's capacity were noted, the decision rested primarily on the defect in the attestation clause, treating the formality not as a mere technicality but as a safeguard against bad faith and fraud.
Main Doctrine
An attestation clause that fails to state that the testator and witnesses signed each and every page of the will renders the will invalid, as this is a mandatory requirement under Section 618 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended by Act No. 2645.