Case Digest: Rodriguez vs. Borja, G.R. No. L-21993, June 21, 1966

Succession | Jurisdiction

Ponente:
Reyes, J.B.L., J.

Recit Version:

The Parish priest of the Catholic Church of Hagonoy, Bulacan, died in the City of Manila. Two proceedings were filed before different courts on the same day. A petition for intestate proceeding was filed before CFI-Rizal at 8:00 am while a petition for the probate was filed  before CFI-Bulacan at 11:00 am.

The jurisdiction of the CFI-Bulacan became vested upon the delivery thereto of the will.

Where the petition for probate is made after the deposit of the will, the petition is deemed to relate back to the time when the will was delivered. Since the testament of Fr. Rodriguez was submitted and delivered to the Court of Bulacan on March 4, while petitioners initiated intestate proceedings in the Court of First Instance of Rizal only on March 12, eight days later, the precedence and exclusive jurisdiction of the Bulacan court is incontestable.

Facts:

On February 12, 1963, Fr. Celestino Rodriguez, the Parish priest of the Catholic Church of Hagonoy, Bulacan, died in the City of Manila.

On March 8, 1963, Apolonia Pangilinan and Adelaida Jacalan delivered Fr. Rodriguez's purported will to the Clerk of Court of Bulacan. 

Maria Rodriguez and Angela Rodriguez filed a petition to examine the will but later withdrew. 

On March 12, 1963, Rodriguez and Rodriguez filed another petition in the CFI-Rizal for the settlement of the intestate estate of Fr. Rodriguez.

On the same date, Pangilinan and Jacalan filed a petition before CFI-Bulacan for the probate of the purported will. 

Rodriguez filed a motion to dismiss the probate proceedings before the CFI-Bulacan.

Contentions: 

• Rodriguez: Since the intestate proceedings in the CFI-Rizal was filed at 8:00 A.M. on March 12, 1963 while the petition for probate was filed in the CFI-Bulacan at 11:00 A.M. on the same date, the latter Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the petition for probate.
• Pangilinan: The CFI-Bulacan acquired jurisdiction over the case upon delivery of the will on March 4, 1963.

CFI-Bulacan: Denied the motion to dismiss on the ground that a difference of a few hours did not entitle one proceeding to preference over the other; and that the movants were aware of the existence of the purported will since they filed a petition to examine the same.

Issue:

WoN the CFI-Bulacan acquired the jurisdiction over the case. YES

Held:

We find this recourse to be untenable. The jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance of Bulacan became vested upon the delivery thereto of the will of the late Father Rodriguez on March 4, 1963, even if no petition for its allowance was filed until later, because upon the will being deposited the court could, motu proprio, have taken steps to fix the time and place for proving the will, and issued the corresponding notices conformably to what is prescribed by section 3, Rule 76, of the Revised Rules of Court (Section 3, Rule 77, of the old Rules):

SEC. 3. Court to appoint time for proving will. Notice thereof to be published. — When a will is delivered to, or a petition for the allowance of a will is filed in, the Court having jurisdiction, such Court shall fix a time and place for proving the will when all concerned may appear to contest the allowance thereof, and shall cause notice of such time and place to be published three (3) weeks successively, previous to the time appointed, in a newspaper of general circulation in the province.

But no newspaper publication shall be made where the petition for probate has been filed by the testator himself.

The use of the disjunctive in the words "when a will is delivered to OR a petition for the allowance of a will is filed" plainly indicates that the court may act upon the mere deposit therein of a decedent's testament, even if no petition for its allowance is as yet filed. Where the petition for probate is made after the deposit of the will, the petition is deemed to relate back to the time when the will was delivered. Since the testament of Fr. Rodriguez was submitted and delivered to the Court of Bulacan on March 4, while petitioners initiated intestate proceedings in the Court of First Instance of Rizal only on March 12, eight days later, the precedence and exclusive jurisdiction of the Bulacan court is incontestable.t

But, petitioners object, section 3 of revised Rule 76 (old Rule 77) speaks of a will being delivered to "the Court having jurisdiction," and in the case at bar the Bulacan court did not have it because the decedent was domiciled in Rizal province. We can not disregard Fr. Rodriguez's 33 years of residence as parish priest in Hagonoy, Bulacan (1930-1963); but even if we do so, and consider that he retained throughout some animus revertendi to the place of his birth in Parañaque, Rizal, that detail would not imply that the Bulacan court lacked jurisdiction. As ruled in previous decisions, the power to settle decedents' estates is conferred by law upon all courts of first instance, and the domicile of the testator only affects the venue but not the jurisdiction of the Court (In re Kaw Singco, 74 Phil. 239; Reyes vs. Diaz, 73 Phil. 484; Bernabe vs. Vergara, 73 Phil. 676). Neither party denies that the late Fr. Rodriguez is deceased, or that he left personal property in Hagonoy, province of Bulacan (t.s.n. p. 46, hearing of June 11, 1963, Annex "H", Petition, Rec., p. 48). That is sufficient in the case before us.

In the Kaw Singco case (ante) this Court ruled that:

"... If we consider such question of residence as one affecting the jurisdiction of the trial court over the subject-matter, the effect shall be that the whole proceedings including all decisions on the different incidents which have arisen in court will have to be annulled and the same case will have to be commenced anew before another court of the same rank in another province. That this is of mischievous effect in the prompt administration of justice is too obvious to require comment. (Cf. Tanunchuan vs. Dy Buncio & Co., G.R. No. 48206, December 31, 1942). Furthermore, section 600 of Act No. 190, providing that the estate of a deceased person shall be settled in the province where he had last resided, could not have been intended as defining the jurisdiction of the probate court over the subject matter, because such legal provision is contained in a law of procedure dealing merely with procedural matters, and, as we have said time and again, procedure is one thing and jurisdiction over the subject matter is another. (Attorney General vs. Manila Railroad Company, 20 Phil. 523.) The law of jurisdiction — Act No. 136, Section 56, No. 5 — confers upon Courts of First Instance jurisdiction over all probate cases independently of the place of residence of the deceased.1 Since, however, there are many Courts of First Instance in the Philippines, the Law of Procedure, Act No. 190, section 600, fixes the venue or the place where each case shall be brought. Thus, the place of residence of the deceased is not an element of jurisdiction over the subject matter but merely of venue. And it is upon this ground that in the new Rules of Court the province where the estate of a deceased person shall be settled is properly called "venue" (Rule 75, section 1.) Motion for reconsideration is denied.

The estate proceedings having been initiated in the Bulacan Court of First Instance ahead of any other, that court is entitled to assume jurisdiction to the exclusion of all other courts, even if it were a case of wrong venue by express provisions of Rule 73 (old Rule 75) of the Rules of Court, since the same enjoins that:

The Court first taking cognizance of the settlement of the estate of a decedent shall exercise jurisdiction to the exclusion of all other courts. (Sec. 1)

This disposition presupposes that two or more courts have been asked to take cognizance of the settlement of the estate. Of them only one could be of proper venue, yet the rule grants precedence to that Court whose jurisdiction is first invoked, without taking venue into account.

There are two other reasons that militate against the success of petitioners. One is that their commencing intestate proceedings in Rizal, after they learned of the delivery of the decedent's will to the Court of Bulacan, was in bad faith, patently done with a view to divesting the latter court of the precedence awarded it by the Rules. Certainly the order of priority established in Rule 73 (old Rule 75) was not designed to convert the settlement of decedent's estates into a race between applicants, with the administration of the properties as the price for the fleetest.

The other reason is that, in our system of civil law, intestate succession is only subsidiary or subordinate to the testate, since intestacy only takes place in the absence of a valid operative will. Says Article 960 of the Civil Code of the Philippines:

ART. 960. Legal or intestate succession takes place:

(1) If a person dies without a will, or with a void will, or one which has subsequently lost its validity;

(2) When the will does not institute an heir to, or dispose of all the property belonging to the testator. In such case, legal succession shall take place only with respect to the property in which the testator has not disposed;

(3) If the suspensive condition attached to the institution of heir does not happen or is not fulfilled, or if the heir dies before the testator, or repudiates the inheritance, there being no substitution, and no right of accretion takes place;

(4) When the heir instituted is incapable of succeeding, except in cases provided in this Code.

Therefore, as ruled in Castro, et al. vs. Martinez, 10 Phil. 307, "only after final decision as to the nullity of testate succession could an intestate succession be instituted in the form of pre-established action". The institution of intestacy proceedings in Rizal may not thus proceed while the probate of the purported will of Father Rodriguez is pending.

We rule that the Bulacan Court of First Instance was entitled to priority in the settlement of the estate in question, and that in refusing to dismiss the probate. proceedings, said court did not commit any abuse of discretion. It is the proceedings in the Rizal Court that should be discontinued.

Wherefore, the writ of certiorari applied for is denied. Costs against petitioners Rodriguez.