BEATRIZ GONZALES V.

CFI MANILA, 104 SCRA 481 (1981)

DOCTRINE: Gonzales gives an extended discussion on the nature and effects of reserva troncal. Among
other things, it stresses that the reservable property does not form part of the estate of the reservor, if upon
his or her death he or she is survived by qualified reservees. As such, the reservor cannot will or bequeath
the reservable property in his or her will, nor can the reservor choose who or discriminate among the
reservees should get the property. The reservees inherit the reservable property not from the reservor, but
from the prepositus. Thus, Gonzales affirms the ruling in Padura v Baldovino and follows the theory of
delayed intestacy in the matter of distributing the reservable property among the reservees. It should be
noted that the Court relied heavily on the ruling in Florentino and quotes substantially from the text of the said
decision. However, there is a failure to note the oversight committed by the Court when it failed to distinguish
between full-blood brothers from half-blood brothers. The opportunity to rectify an error was lost.

FACTS: Benito Legarda y dela Paz (Benito II), son of Benito Legarda y Tuazon (Benito I), died and was
survived by his widow, Filomena and their 7 children. The real properties left by his deceased father,
Benito I, were partitioned in 3 equal parts by Benito II’s sisters and his heirs pro-indiviso. One of his
daughters, Filomena, died without issue and her sole heiress was her mother, Filomena vda de Legarda
1. Mrs. Legarda executed an affidavit adjudicating to herself the properties she inherited from her
daughter as a result of which she succeeded her deceased owner as co-owner of the properties
held pro-indiviso by her other 6 children. Later, Mrs. Legarda executed 2 handwritten documents
disposing of the properties which she inherited from her daughter in favor of her 16 grandchildren
(the children of her sons). Eventually, Mrs. Legarda and her 6 surviving children partitioned the
co-owned property
2. Mrs. Legarda died and in the testate proceeding of her estate, Beatriz Gonzales, one of her
daughters, filed a motion to exclude in the inventory of the properties inherited from Filomena, the
deceased daughter, on the ground that said properties were reservable and should be inherited
by Filomena’s 3 sisters and 3 brothers, not by the 16 grandchildren of Mrs. Legarda, or
Filomena’s nephews and nieces. She also filed an action securing a declaration that the
properties are reservable which Mrs. Legarda could not bequeath in her holographic will to her
grandchildren to the exclusion of her 6 chidlren
3. It is contended here than the properties in question are not reservable properties because only
relatives within the third paternal line have survived and that when Mrs. Legarda willed the
properties to her grandchildren, who are third degree relatives of Filomena 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 should otherwise have
remained therein.”

ISSUE: WON the properties could be conveyed by will to the 16 grandchildren (reservees within the third
degree) to the exclusion of the 6 children (reservees within the second degree)

HELD: No. Mrs. Legarda could not convey in her holographic will to her 16 grandchildren the reservable
properties she inherited from her daughter because the reservable properties did not form part of her
estate. The reservoir cannot make a disposition mortis causa of the reservable properties as long as the
reservees survived the reservoir.

Art 891 clearly indicates that the reservable properties should be inherited by all the nearest within the
third degree from prepositus who in this case are the 6 children of Mrs. Legarda. She could not select the
reservees to whom to the reservable properties should be given and deprive the other reservees of their
shares therein. To allow the reservoir to make a testamentary disposition of the reservable properties in
favor the reservees in the third degree and, consequently, to ignore the reservees in the second degree
would be a glaring violation of Art 891, this cannot be allowed.

Mrs. Legarda could not dispose of the properties in question in her will even if the disposition is in favor of
relatives within the third degree from Filomena. The said properties, by operation of Art 891, should go to
Mrs. Legarda’s 6 children as reservees within the second degree from Filomena. Reservees do not inherit
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.

The reservation could be extinguished only by the absence of reservees at the time of Mrs. Legarda’s
death. Since at the time of her death, there were reservees belonging to the second and third degrees,
the disputed properties did not lose their reservable character. The disposition of the properties should be
made in accordance with Art 891 and in accordance with the reservor’s holographic will.