Digest Abangan v Abangan

Abangan v Abangan Avancena; Nov 12, 1919 FACTS: - Trial Court admitted Ana Abangan’s probate. - The will is described in the following manner: o First sheet:  Contains all the disposition of the testatrix.  Signed at the bottom by Martin Montalban (in the name and under the direction of Ana Abangan)  Signed by three witnesses o Second sheet:  Contains only the attestation clause.  Duly signed by the same three witnesses at the bottom.  Was not signed by the testatrix herself - Anastacia Abangan (different person) et al. appealed from this decision. She says that the probate should have been denied on three grounds: o Neither of the sheets were signed on the left margin by the testatrix and the three witnesses o The pages were not numbered by letters o It was written in a dialect that the testatrix did not understand. Issue: WON the probate should have been admitted. Ruling: Yes. The trial court was correct in admitting the probate.

substitution of any sheet, thereby changing the dispositions of the testatrix. - Act 2645 only took into consideration cases of wills written on several sheets, which did not have to be signed at the bottom by the testator and the witnesses. - But when the dispositions are duly written only on one sheet, and signed at the bottom by the testator and the witnesses, the signatures on the left would be purposeless. - If the signatures at the bottom already guarantee its authenticity, another signature on the left margin would be unnecessary. - This interpretation of Act 2645 also applies to the page containing the attestation clause (the second sheet). Such a signature on the margin by the witnesses would be a formality not required by the statute. - It is also not required that the testatrix sign on the attestation clause because the attestation, as its name implies, appertains only to the witnesses and not the testator since the testator does attest, but executes the will.

1. Re: signing on the left margin - The object of Act 2645, which requires that every sheet should be signed on the left margin, is only to avoid the

3. Re: dialect - The circumstance appearing in the will itself that the same was executed in the city of Cebu and in the dialect of this locality where the testatrix was a neighbor

2. Re: Page numbering - Act 2645’s object in requiring this was to know whether any sheet of the will has been removed. - But when all the dispositive parts of the will are written on one sheet only, the object of the Act 2645 disappears because the removal of this single sheet although unnumbered, cannot be hidden.

is enough to presume that the will was written in a dialect that the testator knew,

absent any proof to the contrary.