IN RE: WILL OF ANA ABANGAN.

GERTRUDIS ABANGAN VS.

ANASTACIA ABANGAN, ET AL.,
G.R. NO. L-13431, NOVEMBER 12, 1919
By: RUTH D. PASINABO

Facts:
- On September 19, 1917, the Court of First Instance of Cebu admitted to
probate Ana Abangan's will executed on July, 1916. It consists of two sheets, the first of
which contains all of the disposition of the testatrix, duly signed at the bottom by Martin
Montalban (in the name and under the direction of the testatrix) and by three witnesses.

- The second sheet contains only the attestation clause duly signed at the bottom
by the three instrumental witnesses. Neither of these sheets is signed on the left margin
by the testatrix and the three witnesses, nor numbered by letters; and these omissions,
according to appellants' contention, are defects whereby the probate of the will should
have been denied.

Issue:
Was the Will validly probated?

Held:
Yes. Referring specially to the signature of the testatrix, same is not necessary in
the attestation clause because this, as its name implies, appertains only to the
witnesses and not to the testator since the latter does not attest, but executes, the will.

In requiring that each and every sheet of the will should also be signed on the left
margin by the testator and three witnesses in the presence of each other, Act No. 2645
(which is the one applicable in the case) evidently has for its object (referring to the
body of the will itself) to avoid the substitution of any of said sheets, thereby changing
the testator's dispositions.

In requiring that each and every page of a will must be numbered correlatively in
letters placed on the upper part of the sheet, it is likewise clear that the object of Act No.
2645 is to know whether any sheet of the will has been removed. But, when all the
dispositive parts of a will are written on one sheet only, the object of the statute
disappears because the removal of this single sheet, although unnumbered, cannot be
hidden.