Paolo Gabriel D.

Jamer

I. Spouses Zaragoza vs. Court of Appeals

G.R. No. 106401 September 29, 2000

a) Collation, as provided by law, refers to every compulsory heir, who succeeds

with other compulsory heirs, must bring into the mass of the estate any property or
right which he may have received from the decedent, during the lifetime of the latter,
by way of donation, or any other gratuitous title in order that it may be computed in the
determination of the legitime of each heir, and in the account of the partition.

In this case, collation is not applicable since the original petition for delivery of
inheritance share only impleaded one of the other compulsory heirs. Therefore, the
petition must therefore be dismissed without prejudice to the institution of a new
proceeding.

b) The doctrine applied in this case is that a partition inter vivos may be done for as
long as legitimes are not prejudiced. In relation to the case, partition was done by
Flavio during his lifetime and the legitimes are not prejudiced with such partition.

II. Azuela vs. Court of Appeals

G.R. No. 122880 April 12, 2006

a) The law provides that every will, other than a holographic will, must be
subscribed at the end thereof by the testator himself or by the testator's name written
by some other person in his presence, and by his express direction, and attested and
subscribed by three or more credible witnesses in the presence of the testator and of
one another.

In the present case, it is the witnesses, and not the testator, who are required under
the law to state the number of pages used upon which the will is written. The fact that
the testator had signed the will and every page then they witnessed and signed the will
and all the pages in the presence of the testator and of one another. The only proof in
the will that the witnesses have stated these elemental facts would be their signatures
on the attestation clause.

Hence, the will cannot be considered to have been validly attested to by the
instrumental witnesses because they failed to sign the attestation clause.

b) The requirement under the law that every will must be acknowledged before a
notary public by the testator and the witnesses has also not been complied with.  

A notarial will that is not acknowledged before a notary public by the testator and the
witnesses is fatally defective, even if it is subscribed and sworn to before a notary
public.

In this case, the decedent, unlike the witnesses, failed to sign both pages of the will on
the left margin, her only signature appearing at the so-called "logical end"of the will on
its first page. Also, the will itself is not numbered correlatively in letters on each page,
but instead numbered with Arabic numerals. There is a line of thought that has
disabused the notion that these two requirements be construed as mandatory.