G.R. No. 118464. December 21, 1998.
HEIRS OF IGNACIO CONTI and ROSARIO CUARIO, petitioners, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and LYDIA S. REYES, et al., respondents.

FACTS

The property in question, a lot with a house in Lucena City, was co-owned by Lourdes Sampayo and Ignacio Conti, married to Rosario Cuario. Upon Lourdes’s death intestate and without issue in 1986, private respondents, claiming to be her collateral heirs, filed an action for partition. They presented testimonial and documentary evidence, including baptismal certificates, to establish that Lourdes’s surviving sibling was Josefina Sampayo and that the other claimants were descendants of Lourdes’s predeceased siblings. They resorted to baptismal certificates because the Office of the Civil Registrar had been destroyed by fire.
Petitioners, the heirs of Ignacio Conti, refused partition, arguing that private respondents failed to prove their heirship. They claimed that by agreement, Lourdes’s share would pass to Ignacio Conti, whom she considered a brother, as both were allegedly adopted by the same foster parents. However, no will or written instrument was presented to substantiate this alleged agreement. The trial court declared private respondents as rightful heirs and ordered partition.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court’s declaration that private respondents are the rightful heirs of Lourdes Sampayo entitled to demand partition.

RULING

The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the assailed Decision and Resolution. The legal logic is clear: the right to demand partition is inherent in co-ownership. Upon Lourdes Sampayo’s death, her rights as a co-owner were transmitted to her heirs by operation of law. The petitioners, as surviving co-owners, cannot refuse a legitimate demand for partition absent a convincing legal reason. The Court found that private respondents successfully established their status as collateral heirs through preponderance of evidence. The baptismal certificates, duly certified by the church custodian, were admissible as evidence to prove filiation, especially in light of the destruction of the civil registry records. This evidence remained uncontroverted.
In contrast, petitioners’ claim of an oral agreement for Lourdes to leave her share to them was unsubstantiated by any written instrument and was inherently unreliable. The Court emphasized that claims against the rights of legal heirs must be established by clear and convincing proof, which petitioners failed to provide. Consequently, private respondents, as duly proven heirs, validly exercised their right under Article 494 of the Civil Code to demand the partition of the decedent’s undivided interest in the co-owned property.