Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-41947

January 16, 1936

In re Will of the deceased Silvestra Baron.

VIVENCIO CUYUGAN, petitioner-appellant,
vs.
FAUSTINA BARON and GUILLERMO BARON, oppositors-appellees.
Pedro Abad Santos, Quirino Abad Santos, Francisco M. Ramos, and Aurelio Pineda for
appellant.
Arturo Joven for appellee Guillermo Baron.
Vicente J. Francisco and Jesus E. Blanco for appellee Faustina Baron.
BUTTE, J.:
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of Pampanga denying all the
petition of Vivencio Cuyugan for the probate of the will of Silvestra Baron.
The petition which was filed on February 1, 1933, recites among other things that Silvestra
Baron died on January 30, 1933. The death certificate recites that she was eighty-six years
of age and died of heart failure. The petition further recites that she left an estate exceeding
in value the sum of P80,000 which she disposed of by will dated December 17, 1932, that
she died single without forced heirs.
The will appointed Vivencio Cuyugan, her nephew, as executor and contains the following
paragraphs which dispose of her estate:
Que despues de pagados todos los gastos quese han de ocasioner desde que me
caiga enferma hasta el entiero de mi cadaver, los bienes y propiedades que he de
dejar se repartiran buenamente y en partes iguales mis hermanos Ilamados
Guillermo Baron, con exception de todo el dinero en metalico y mi casa de materiales
fuertes construida en el barrio del Pilar, San Fernando, Pampanga que actualmente
habita mi hermano Guillermo Baron, porque estos los doy de una manera absoluta
como herencia de mi sobrino Vivencio Cuyugan.
Que a la muerte de mis hermanos Guillermo y Faustina Baron, todos los terrenos que
en virtud de este test tamento les dejo en herencia, los doy herencia a mi so brino
VIVENCIO CUYUGAN, por lo que, encargo y prohibo a mis citados hermanos Guillermo
y Faustina Baron, que graven o pongan cualquiera clase de obligacion sobre los
bienes que les dejo en herencia.
The original of this will is signed "Silestra On" and the copy is signed "Silestra Baron" (t.s.n.
pp. 170, 171). Both copies are written in the Pampanga dialect and consist of one sheet and

are witnessed in due form by Vicente David, Valeriano Silva and Zacarias Nuguid (known to
the testator).
The petition for probate recites:
9. That on the date of the execution of said will, that is to say, on December 17,
1932, the said testatrix was about 80 years old, more or less, and was found and
disposing mind, and not acting under duress, menace, fraud, or undue influence, and
was in every respect competent to dispose of her estate by will.
The amended oppositions of Guillermo Baron, brother of the deceased, and Faustina Baron,
sister of the deceased, allege in substance first, that at the time of the execution of the
alleged will, Silvestra Baron was mentally and physically incapacitated for the execution of a
will; and, second, that her signature and alleged consent to the said will was obtained and
the attorney who prepared the document and the witnesses who affixed their signatures
thereto.
Upon the issues thus drawn by the pleadings of the judge of the Court of First Instance, after
and extended trial and a full consideration of the evidence, came to the following
conclusion:
Opinamos que influyeron indebidamente e impropia mente en la voluntad ya
debilitada de doa Silvestra Baron por su avanzada edad la presencia de sus sobrinos
Vivencio Cuyugan y Regino Cuyugan durante el otorgamiento del Exhibit A; la
ausencia de Faustina Baron impedida de presenciarlo por algunos soldados de la
Constabularia y el Jefe de Policia Municipal, Zacarias Nuguid; la oposicion de Regino
Cuyugan a que ella firmase el documento preparado por el abogado Narciso
declarando que no habia otorgado testamento el dia anterior a su translado forzoso a
San Fernando para que no se hisciese firmar documento analogo y la presencia del
cabo Morales y del algunos otros soldados, no solamente cuando se otorgo el
testamento, sino cuando ella fue transladada de casa contra su voluntad y cuando se
le hizo firmar el Exhibit 10, y por lo tanto, que ella no gozo de una completa libertad
para disponer de sus bienes en testamento, o con pleno conocimiento del alcance de
su contendido. Solo asi se explica el que ella haya dejado toda la propiedad de sus
bienes a sus sobrinos, con quienes habia estado en pleito, con pretericion de sus
hermanos, especialmente de la opositora Faustina Baron, con quien habia
conviviendo durante 40 aos . . . .
Sentadas las premisas de hecho y de derecho que an teceden, el Juzgado no puede
menos de llegar a la con ser legalizado como el testamento y ultima voluntad de la
finada Silvestra Baron. Cuando existen pruebas suficien tes para concencer al
Juzgado de que se ha ejercido in fluencia indebida en el animo de la testadora y que
como resultado de dicha influencia indebida esta ha otorgado el testamento de la
voluntad de la supuesta testadora sino de los que sobre ella ejercieron la influencia
indebida.
An instrument purporting to be a will executed and witnessed in accordance with the
formalities required by the statute is entitled to the presumption of regularity. But the

burden of the evidence passed to the proponent when the oppositors submit credible
evidence tending to show that the supposed testator did not possess testamentary capacity
at the time or that the document was not the free and voluntary expression of the alleged
testator or that the will, for any other reason, is void in law. The finding that the will was
executed under due influence or by the fraud of another presupposes testamentary capacity.
In the present case the learned trial judge refused the probate of the alleged will on the
ground that it was executed under the due influence of other persons and we think the
record warrants his findings in this respect. The trial court also made findings of fact tending
to show actual lack of testamentary capacity of Silvestra Baron and we have preferred to
base our conclusion on that finding. The testamentary capacity of Silvestra Baron at the
time she executed the said purported will.
The evidence shows that the same morning when Silvestra Baron signed the alleged will she
suffered a physical collapse of such a serious nature that a physician and a nurse were
immediately called in. By reason of her advanced age and the gravity of her illness, she was
unable to do anything for herself. Her grandniece, Epifania Sampang, who reached the
house about one hour or so after the old lady's collapse, telephoned a message to Vivencio
Cuyugan at San Fernando, some fourteen kilometers distant, that Silvestra had an attack
and was in a serious condition and requested that a doctor be sent immediately, Doctor
Teopaco and a nurse arrived at about ten o'clock and treated the patient with a plaster on
her back and ice packs over her heart and the doctor gave her a hypodermic injection in the
arm. As the doctor and the nurse were leaving, Vivencio Cuyugan, with an attorney and
three witnesses, entered the house prepared to obtain the will of Silvestra Baron. Neither the
doctor nor the nurse were presented as witnesses by the proponent. Epifania Sampang,
admittedly an intelligent young woman, who was the first to reach Silvestra Baron and
remained throughout the morning attended to her, testified that when she reached the
house she found her grandaunt lying in bed, very pale and unconscious; that she called to
her but she did not answer and only groaned; that her mouth was twisted and her lower lip
swollen. She went out to call a doctor but all the doctors in Magalang were out whereupon
she telephoned as stated to San Fernando for a doctor.
The subscribing witnesses stated that it was their belief that Silvestra understood the
alleged will which she signed, but all of them admitted that although they were in her house
about two hours not one of them exchanged a single word of conversation with Silvestra.
The subscribing witness Zacarias Nuguid testified in part as follows:
P. Desde que los tres abogados Abad Santos, Silva y David y usted y Vivencio
Cuyugan se acercaron a la cama de la finada, hasta que tanto ella como usteded
firmaron el testamento, ha pronunciado ella alguna palabra? ha dicho ella algo o
no? R. No recuerdo.
P. Pero, por lo que usted recuerda, ha dicho ella algo o no ha dicho nada? R. No
recuerdo.
P. Usted ha dicho algo a ella? R. Nada.
P. El seor Quirino Abad Santos le ha dicho algo a ella? R. Nada. No he oido.

P. Los otros abogados Silva y David le han dicho algo ? R. No he oido.

P. Ella ha dicho algo a cualquiera de osos tres o a los abogados? R. No he oido que
dijera algo.
P. Si ella hubiese dicho algo a los abogados, asi como los abogados hubieran hablado
a ella, usted hubiera oido porque usted estaba cerca, no es verdad? R. Si seor,
hubiera podido oir.
P. Cuando el senor Silva termino de leer el testamento, dijo algo la vieja? R. No he
oido que dijera algo.
There is no evidence that Silvestra Baron took any active part in the preparation of the
alleged will except that when she was asked if she wished to include her sister Faustina in
the will she said "Yes" in Pampanga. There is no affirmative evidence that she understood
the document when it was read to her. The person who read the will to her testified as
follows:
R. Despues de leido el testamento, tuve que entregarlo a doa Silvestra, y lo miro
algun rato.
P. Y ella, efectivamente, cogio el testamento de manos de usted? R. Lo entregue a
sus manos.
P. Y ella lo cogio con sus manos? R. Si seor.
P. Y lo tuvo en sus manos leyendo, mirando? R. Mirandolo asi.
P. Pero, no lo leia? R. Lo estuvo mirando por mucho tiempo asi.
Standing at her bedside was the attorney with three witnesses and the chief beneficiary,
Vivencio Cuyugan, and yet so far as this record shows, not a word was exchanged between
any of them and the suffering old woman. We don't know what drug the doctor administered
but it is clear to us from the evidence that in her dazed physical and mental condition she
had no adequate understanding of what she was doing at that time. She could not even sign
her name to the original will properly or correctly, and when this defect was noted by one of
the astute subscribing witnesses, he suggested that they have her sign another copy (t.s.n.
page 109) which was done.
She never saw the alleged will at any time again prior to her death which occurred forty-four
days later. It was immediately taken away by an attorney who kept it in his possession
alleging that she had instructed him to keep it secret. There is, however, credible evidence
in the record that before her death she had denied to several persons that she made any
will.
This belief on her part that she had not made any will explains her failure to do any act of
revocation in the forty-four days during which she lingered in this life. The doctrine that
where the testator has had an opportunity to revoke his will subsequent to the operation of

an alleged undue influence upon him but makes no change in it, the courts will consider this
fact as weighing heavily against the testimony of undue influence, has no application to
cases in which there has been an initial lack of testamentary capacity. It has no application,
moreover, where from the day of execution until the death of the testator his mental
condition is such that he cannot judge the propriety of revoking the will. Nor obviously does
it apply to a case where the alleged testator harbors the belief that he had not executed the
will in question.
In view of the premises, the judgment appealed from is affirmed with costs against the
appellant.