TESTATE ESTATE OF MARIA ZUÑIGA VDA. DE PANDO, deceased.

JUAN REYES, petitioner-

administrator-appellant,
vs.
DOLORES ZUÑIGA VDA. DE VIDAL, oppositor-appellee.

FACTS: Maria Zuniga died in 1945 leaving a will. In the same year, a petition for the probate of said will
was filed in the CFI of Manila. Dolores Zuniga, the sister of the deceased opposed the probate
proceeding contending that (1) the signatures of the deceased appearing in the will are not genuine; (2)
that the it was not proven that the deceased knew the Spanish language in which the document was
written; and that (3) the deceased was not of sound mind when she executed the subject will.

ISSUE: WON the will of Maria Zuniga was validly executed.

RULING: Yes. As regard to the genuiness of the signature of the deceased, the Supreme Court held that
evidence on records shows that the three witnesses present at the execution of the will testified in their
own and natural way that the deceased signed the will in their presence, and after she signed it the
places where her signatures appear, they in turn signed it in the presence of each another.

The only evidence presented by the oppositor is the testimony of an expert witness, a document
examiner named Jose Villanueva, who made a comparative analysis of the signatures appearing in the
will in relation to some genuine signature of the deceased, which he based his conclusion that the
signature in the document was forged and it was accepted by the trial court.

However, the opinion of Villanueva was rebutted by another expert witness, Jose Espinosa, who uses a
more accurate mode of comparison than used by Villanueva. Espinosa considered the age and health
condition of the deceased when the latter executed the subject will which is a paramount importance in
handwriting analysis.

As regards to the language in which the will in question appears to have been written, the Supreme
Court held that there is enough evidence on records that the deceased was a mestiza espanola.
Furthermore, a letter was submitted as evidence by the oppositor written in Spanish by the deceased.
These facts give rise to the presumption that the testatrix knew the language in which the testament
has been written, which presumption should stand unless the contrary is proven. And this
presumption has not been overcome. And finally, we have the very attestation clause of the will
which states that the testatrix knew and possessed the Spanish language.
As regards to the last contention of the oppositor regarding the soundness of the mind of the
deceased when she executed the will in question, the Supreme Court held that based on the
evidence on records, the witnesses gave an idea of mental condition of the deceased in the will
differ from each other in certain aspects, and that the discrepancy on the signature was due to her
age and state of health rather than defective mental condition. Some of them actually had a
conversation with the deceased.