Icasiano vs.

Icasiano
G.R. No. L-18979 June 30, 1964

Facts:
1. Celso Icasiano, filed a petition for the probate of the will of Josefa Villacorte and for his
appointment as executor thereof. It appears from the evidence that the testatrix died on
September 12, 1958. She executed a will in Tagalog, and through the help of her lawyer, it was
prepared in duplicates, an original and a carbon copy.

2. On the day that it was subscribed and attested, the lawyer only brought the original copy of
the will while the carbon duplicate (unsigned) was left in Bulacan. One of the witnesses failed to
sign one of the pages in the original copy but admitted he may have lifted 2 pages
simultaneously instead when he signed the will. Nevertheless, he affirmed that the will was
signed by the testator and other witnesses in his presence.

Issue: Whether or not the failure of one of the subscribing witnesses to affix his signature to a
page is sufficient to deny probate of the will

RULING: No, the failure to sign was entirely through pure oversight or mere inadvertence. Since
the duplicated bore the required signatures, this proves that the omission was not intentional.
Even if the original is in existence, a duplicate may still be admitted to probate since the original
is deemed to be defective, then in law, there is no other will but the duly signed carbon
duplicate and the same can be probated.

The law should not be strictly and literally interpreted as to penalize the testatrix on account of
the inadvertence of a single witness over whose conduct she has no control of. Where the
purpose of the law is to guarantee the identity of the testament and its component pages, and
there is no intentional or deliberate deviation existed.

Note that this ruling should not be taken as a departure from the rules that the will should be
signed by the witnesses on every page. The carbon copy duplicate was regular in all respects.