Lee v. Tambago
544 SCRA 393
FACTS:
Complainant, Manuel L. Lee, charged respondent, Atty. Regino B. Tambago, with violation of Notarial Law and the Ethics of the legal profession for notarizing a will that is alleged to be spurious in nature in containing forged signatures of his father, the decedent, Vicente Lee Sr. and two other witnesses. In the said will, the decedent supposedly bequeathed his entire estate to his wife Lim Hock Lee, save for a parcel of land which he devised to Vicente Lee, Jr. and Elena Lee, half-siblings of complainant.
The will was purportedly executed and acknowledged before respondent on June 30, 1965.Complainant, however, pointed out that the residence certificateof the testator noted in the acknowledgment of the will was dated January 5, 1962.Furthermore, the signature of the testator was not the same as his signature as donor in a deed of donationwhich supposedly contained his purported signature. Complainant averred that the signatures of his deceased father in the will and in the deed of donation were “in any way entirely and diametrically opposed from one another in all angle[s].”
Complainant also questioned the absence of notation of the residence certificates of the purported witnesses Noynay and Grajo. He alleged that their signatures had likewise been forged and merely copied from their respective voters’ affidavits.
Complainant further asserted that no copy of such purported will was on file in the archives division of the Records Management and Archives Office of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
ISSUE:
Was the will spurious?
HELD:
Yes, thus Tambago violated the Notarial Law and the ethics of legal profession.
The law provides for certain formalities that must be followed in the execution of wills. The object of solemnities surrounding the execution of wills is to close the door on bad faith and fraud, to avoid substitution of wills and testaments and to guarantee their truth and authenticity.
A notarial will, as the contested will in this case, is required by law to be subscribed at the end thereof by the testator himself. In addition, it should be attested and subscribed by three or more credible witnesses in the presence of the testator and of one another. The will in question was attested by only two witnesses. On this circumstance alone, the will must be considered void. This is in consonance with the rule that acts executed against the provisions of mandatory or prohibitory laws shall be void, except when the law itself authorizes their validity. The Civil Code likewise requires that a will must be acknowledged before a notary public by the testator and the witnesses. An acknowledgment is the act of one who has executed a deed in going before some competent officer or court and declaring it to be his act or deed. It involves an extra step undertaken whereby the signatory actually declares to the notary public that the same is his or her own free act and deed. The acknowledgment in a notarial will has a two-fold purpose: (1) to safeguard the testator’s wishes long after his demise and (2) to assure that his estate is administered in the manner that he intends it to be done.
A cursory examination of the acknowledgment of the will in question shows that this particular requirement was neither strictly nor substantially complied with. For one, there was the conspicuous absence of a notation of the residence certificates of the notarial witnesses Noynay and Grajo in the acknowledgment. Similarly, the notation of the testator’s old residence certificate in the same acknowledgment was a clear breach of the law. These omissions by respondent invalidated the will.
As the acknowledging officer of the contested will, respondent was required to faithfully observe the formalities of a will and those of notarization. These formalities are mandatory and cannot be disregarded.
