G.R. No. L-14603; April 29, 1961
Ricardo Lacerna, et al., plaintiffs-appellants, vs. Agatona Paurillo Vda. de Corcino, defendant-appellee. Jacoba Marbebe, intervenor-appellee.

FACTS

The plaintiffs-appellants, the Lacerna cousins, filed an action to recover three parcels of land originally owned by Bonifacia Lacerna. Upon her death in 1932, the properties passed to her only son, Juan Marbebe. Juan died intestate in Culion in 1943, single and without descendants or ascendants. The defendant, Agatona Vda. de Corcino, held the lands under a claim of a power of attorney from Juan. Intervenor-appellee Jacoba Marbebe claimed the properties as Juan’s half-sister, being the daughter of Valentin Marbebe (Juan’s father) by a previous marriage.
The Lacerna plaintiffs are first cousins of Juan Marbebe on his mother’s side. They asserted a superior right of inheritance over Jacoba, arguing that the properties, having come from the maternal line (Bonifacia Lacerna), should be reserved for relatives within the third degree of that same line pursuant to the “reserva troncal” under Article 891 of the Civil Code. The trial court rejected this and ruled in favor of the intervenor, Jacoba Marbebe, as the half-sister.

ISSUE

Whether the “reserva troncal” under Article 891 of the Civil Code applies, thereby favoring the maternal cousins, or whether the rules of ordinary intestate succession govern, favoring the paternal half-sister.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision, ruling that the “reserva troncal” is inapplicable and that Jacoba Marbebe, as a half-sister, inherits to the exclusion of the plaintiffs-appellants. The legal logic is clear and sequential. First, Article 891 on “reserva troncal” applies only when an ascendant inherits property from a descendant which the descendant had originally acquired gratuitously from another ascendant or a sibling. This creates a reservation in favor of relatives within the third degree from the line of origin.
The Court found this provision irrelevant to the case at bar. Here, the transmission was from an ascendant (mother Bonifacia) to a descendant (son Juan), not from a descendant to an ascendant. Since the condition precedent for Article 891 was absent, the ordinary rules of intestate succession under Articles 1003 to 1009 of the Civil Code controlled. Under these rules, brothers and sisters exclude all other collateral relatives. A half-sister is a sister for purposes of intestate succession. Therefore, Jacoba Marbebe, as the sole half-sister, rightfully excluded the deceased’s first cousins, regardless of the line from which the property originated. The proximity of relationship under the general order of succession prevails over the plaintiffs’ theory of line-based reservation.