ROMARICO G.
VITUG, petitioner,
vs.
THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS and ROWENA FAUSTINO-CORONA, respondents.
G.R. No. 82027 March 29, 1990
FACTS:
Petitioner Romarico G. Vitug filed a motion asking for authority from the probate court
to sell certain shares of stock and real properties belonging to the estate to cover
allegedly his advances to the estate plus interests, which he claimed were personal
funds. As found by the Court of Appeals, the alleged advances were spent for the
payment of estate tax, deficiency estate tax, and increments thereto.
Rowena Corona opposed the motion to sell on the ground that the same funds
withdrawn from savings account No. 35342-038 were conjugal partnership properties
and part of the estate, and hence, there was allegedly no ground for reimbursement.
She also sought his ouster for failure to include the sums in question for inventory and
for "concealment of funds belonging to the estate."
Vitug insists that the said funds are his exclusive property having acquired the same
through a survivorship agreement executed with his late wife and the bank.
The RTC ruled in favor of Vitug. On the other hand, the Court of Appeals, in the petition
for certiorari filed by the herein private respondent, held that the above-quoted
survivorship agreement constitutes a conveyance mortis causa which "did not comply
with the formalities of a valid will as prescribed by Article 805 of the Civil Code," and
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secondly, assuming that it is a mere donation inter vivos, it is a prohibited donation
under the provisions of Article 133 of the Civil Code.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the survivorship agreement between the spouses Vitug constitutes a
donation.
RULING:
No. The conveyance in question is not, first of all, one of mortis causa, which should be
embodied in a will. A will has been defined as "a personal, solemn, revocable and free
act by which a capacitated person disposes of his property and rights and declares or
complies with duties to take effect after his death." In other words, the bequest or
device must pertain to the testator. In this case, the monies subject of savings account
No. 35342-038 were in the nature of conjugal funds In the case relied on, Rivera v.
People's Bank and Trust Co, we rejected claims that a survivorship agreement purports
to deliver one party's separate properties in favor of the other, but simply, their joint
holdings.
There is no showing that the funds exclusively belonged to one party, and hence it
must be presumed to be conjugal, having been acquired during the existence of the
marital relations.
Neither is the survivorship agreement a donation inter vivos, for obvious reasons,
because it was to take effect after the death of one party. Secondly, it is not a donation
between the spouses because it involved no conveyance of a spouse's own properties to
the other.
It is also our opinion that the agreement involves no modification petition of the
conjugal partnership, as held by the Court of Appeals, by "mere stipulation" and that
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it is no "cloak" to circumvent the law on conjugal property relations. Certainly, the
spouses are not prohibited by law to invest conjugal property, say, by way of a joint
and several bank account, more commonly denominated in banking parlance as an
"and/or" account. In the case at bar, when the spouses Vitug opened savings account
No. 35342-038, they merely put what rightfully belonged to them in a money-making
venture. They did not dispose of it in favor of the other, which would have arguably
been sanctionable as a prohibited donation. And since the funds were conjugal, it can
not be said that one spouse could have pressured the other in placing his or her
deposits in the money pool.
There is no demonstration here that the survivorship agreement had been executed for
such unlawful purposes, or, as held by the respondent court, in order to frustrate our
laws on wills, donations, and conjugal partnership.
The conclusion is accordingly unavoidable that Mrs. Vitug having predeceased her
husband, the latter has acquired upon her death a vested right over the amounts under
savings account No. 35342-038 of the Bank of America. Insofar as the respondent court
ordered their inclusion in the inventory of assets left by Mrs. Vitug, we hold that the
court was in error. Being the separate property of petitioner, it forms no more part of
the estate of the deceased.
