A Brief History of Reserva Troncal

The legal concept of Reserva Troncal is condensed in Article 891

of the New Civil Code, which states:

Art. 891. The ascendant who inherits from his

descendant any property which the latter may have
acquired by gratuitous title from another ascendant, or
a brother or sister, is obliged to reserve such property
as he may have acquired by operation of law for the
benefit of relatives who are within the third degree and
who belong to the line from which said property came.

Reserva Troncal, in brief, seeks to prevent persons who are

outsiders to the family from acquiring, by chance or accident,
property which otherwise would have remained with the said
family. It aims to put back the property reserved to the line, or
branch, from which it originally came. It seeks to avoid the
danger that property existing for many years in a family's
patrimony might pass gratuitously to outsiders through the
accident of marriage and untimely death.

Its origins and how it came to be in Philippine Law has been

definitively and exhaustively discussed by Professor Ruben E.
Balane in the Fifth JBL Reyes Lecture in U.P. Diliman entitled
Reserva Troncal: Prospect and Retrospect (58 Phil. LJ 387-419,
1983), from which most of this discussion, it is admitted, and
because of a lack of other competent sources, shall be taken
from.

FROM ROMAN LAW

Reserving property in favor of or for the benefit of persons had

already existed during the height of the Roman Empire. The
Corpus Juris Civilis, otherwise known as the Code of Justinian,
served as the collections of laws and legal interpretations
developed under the sponsorship of the Byzantine emperor
Justinian I from AD 529 to 565. Under its provisions on second
marriages, the Code provided a duty for a surviving or widowed
spouse to reserve property for the benefit of children of their
previous marriage. More specifically, Roman Law provided that a
person contracting a second or subsequent marriage was obliged
to reserve for the benefit of the children of the previous
marriage, whatever property he or she might have acquired by
operation of law, will, donation, or any other gratuitous title from
the deceased consort, or from any brother, sister or descendant
of said children (Laws 1 and 2, Title IX, Book V, Corpus Juris
Civilis, as stated in 58 Phil. LJ 389).

ADOPTED BY SPAIN

The aforementioned provision was reproduced by the Spanish

Civil Code of 1889, enacted by Royal Decree on 24 December
1889, under Book III, Title III, Chapter 5, Section Two on
properties subject to reservation. This reserva was then known
as the reserva viudal.

More specifically, Article 968 of the Spanish Code stated:

Article 968. As well as the reservation provided in

article 811, the widower or widow who marries again
shall be obliged to reserve in favour of the children and
descendants of the first spouse the ownership of all
property acquired from his deceased spouse by will, by
intestate succession, by gift or by another title for no
consideration; but not his half of the marriage property
community. (As translated by the World Intellectual
Property Organization [WIPO]).

And Article 969 of the Spanish Code followed, thus:

Article 969. The provisions of the preceding article

shall apply to property which, pursuant to the title
expressed therein, has been acquired by the widower
 or widow from any of the children of his first marriage
and those received from the deceaseds relatives on
account of the former. (As translated by the World
Intellectual Property Organization [WIPO]).

However, the Spanish Civil Code also introduced a new concept

of the reserva, which, according to Sanchez Roman, did not have
a precedent in Castillan Law (58 Phil LJ 389). This new concept
was encapsulated in Article 811 of the Spanish Code, which
stated:

Article 811. The ascendant who inherits from his

descendant property acquired by the latter as a gift
from another ascendant, or from a sibling, shall be
obliged to reserve the property acquired by operation
of law in favour of relatives within the third degree,
and who belong to the line where the property comes
from. (As translated by the World Intellectual Property
Organization [WIPO]).

This new form of reserva was meant to recognize the duality of

genealogical lines of every individual-the paternal and the
maternal, and that to the extent provided for in the new law,
these lines, or trunks or branches (troncos, as of a tree) should
be kept separate (58 Phil LJ 390).

Authors thereafter referred to this new form of reserva as the

reserva extraordinaria whilst the older reserva was referred to
as the reserva ordinaria (58 Phil LJ 391).

THE RESERVA TRONCAL

The reserva troncal denomination came about by introducing

the concept of dividing ones ancestry into certain branches, or
trunks (troncos) in determining for whom the property is to be
reserved, thus earning the name. Gonzalez v. Court of First
Instance mentions the alternative terms "troncal," "lineal,"
"familiar," "extraordinaria," and "semitroncal (G.R. No. 34395,
May 19, 1981, 104 SCRA 479, 1981, as stated in 58 Phil LJ 391).

A COMPROMISE

Professor Ruben Balane discusses in depth how the reserva

troncal was a product of compromise of the then Spanish Code
Commission between advocates of a principle of absolute
separation of genealogical lines, or troncalidad, and those who
preferred the principle of proximity of degree (58 Phil LJ 392).
Troncalidad (as defined from Luis Mouton y Ocampo:
Troncalidad, in Enciclopedia Juridica Espanola, Vol. XXX, p. 455,
and as quoted by Professor Balane in 58 Phil LJ 392), means the
right or privilege by virtue of which those hereditary properties
of a person which have a known family affiliation revert or return
to the line (tronco) from which they originated, in those cases of
intestate succession when there are no descendants.

Author Castan shared his view on this particular compromise,

showing the extreme separation of advocates of the
aforementioned principles, thus:

The argument was raised before the Code Commission

that it would be unjust to allow property possessed by
a family as part of its patrimony for one century or
more, to pass to outsiders should it be inherited upon
the death of a child or grandchild, by an ascendant
who had contracted or was about to contract a
subsequent marriage. After considering different
proposals all designed to forestall such an eventuality,
the Commission finally accepted the suggestion of
Alonso Martinez, which was thought to harmonize
everything in an acceptable system of reservas; a
subcommittee was then formed to put the idea in
shape, and the subcommittee, composed of Manresa,
Goyena, Duran, and Franco, drafted the actual text of
Article 811. By means of the draft article it was
 thought that the new Code would avoid the
undesirable possibility of property of a family passing
to another in spite of the existence of close relatives
within the former, without at the same time giving rise
to the exaggerated consequences of the principle of
troncalidad. At the same time, it was hoped that the
new article would narrow the gap between Castilian
law and foral law and thus pave the way for legislative
unity. This illusion of the codifiers proved vain, for, on
the one hand, the new article failed to harmonize with
foral legislations which accept the system of
troncalidad, and, on the other, it produced in the
national law an anomalous institution with a strange
flavor. Furthermore, the wording of the text is so
deficient that it has in fact given rise to interminable
doubts and questions (4 Castan, Derecho Civil Espanol,
Comun y Foral 186, 6th ed. 1944, as directly quoted by
Professor Balane, 58 Phil LJ 392).

The end result of this compromise is, by Professor Balanes

expression, a dilution of the original concept of the principle of
troncalidad (58 Phil LJ 392). According to him, Sanchez Roman
shared the same sentiment, calling the compromise as revealing
a vacillating spirit of the drafters-- (6 Sanchez Roman, Etudios
de Derecho Civil 974, 2nd ed. 1910). Don Manuel Alonso
Martinez, the Chairman of the then Code Commission, verified
this view (Alonso Martinez, El Codigo Civil en sus Relaciones con
las Legislaciones Forales 226-227, 1908).

How the original concept of troncalidad was diluted is, according

to Professor Balane, manifested in the following features:

1. It compromises with the principle of proximity of degree by

allowing the ascendant to get the property during his
lifetime;
2. The limitation of its operation to third degree relatives
within the family line of origin; and
 3. The restriction of the tracing of the source to the ascendant
or sibling who transmitted the property by operation of law,
and not beyond him. (6 Manresa, Comentarios al Codigo
Civil Espanol, 263-264, 5th Ed., 1921., as stated directly by
Professor Balane, 58 Phil LJ 392-393.)

EMBEDDED IN PHILIPPINE LAW

The Spanish Civil Code, which included this concept of reserva

troncal, was by Royal Decree also enforced in the Philippines
(and other Spanish colonies Cuba and Puerto Rico) on 24
December 1889 (58 Phil LJ 393).

Professor Balane however notes that the concept of reserva

troncal is not found in the Civil Code of any other former Spanish
colony. The Code of Puerto Rico of 1902 had reproduced the
troncal in its Section 799 but the provision was repealed on 8
March 1906; the viudal, however, is still found in Section 2731 of
that Code. Thus Puerto Rico and the Philippines-both of which
remained Spanish possessions after the revolutions of Bolivar
and San Martin in the South American colonies-have apportioned
between themselves the two reservas, the former adopting the
viudal and the latter, the troncal (58 Phil. LJ 393, footnote 26).

Under Commonwealth Act No. 628, approved on 10 June 1941, a

committee was initially created in order to draft a new Civil Code
for the Philippines to supplant the old Spanish Code. However, it
was not able to complete its work and submit its report within
the two years from that date as required by said Act by reason of
World War II, thus rendering inoperative the provisions of the
Act.

Executive Order No. 48, series of 1947 under then President

Manuel Roxas lamented this, for which a new Code Commission
was created.
The Code Commission, in drafting this new Civil Code (which
would become the New Civil Code of the Philippines under
Republic Act 386, approved on 18 June 1949), practically copied
in toto the aforementioned Article 811 of the Spanish Code and
transformed it into what is now Article 891 of the New Civil
Code.

At the time of the creation of the Code Commission in 1947,

however, the Philippines had two (2) concepts of reserva, and
two (2) reversiones (58 Phil LJ 393).

First was the reversion legal, which, according to Article 812 of

the old Spanish Code, stated:

Article 812. Ascendants shall succeed, to the exclusion

of other persons, to things given by them to their
children or descendants who have died without issue,
where the same objects which were given should exist
in the succession. If they should have been disposed of,
they shall succeed to all actions held by the donee in
connection therewith, and to the proceeds obtained if
they should have been sold, or to the property for
which they were exchanged, if they should have been
exchanged or bartered. (As translated by the World
Intellectual Property Organization [WIPO].)

The other was the reversion adoptiva, or the reversion in

adoption, as found in Rule 100, Section 5 of the then Rules of
Court of 1940, stating:

In case of death of the child, his parents and relatives

by nature, and not
by adoption, shall be his legal heirs, except as to
property received or inherited by the adopted child
from either of the parents by adoption, which shall
become the property of the latter or other legitimate
 relatives, who shall participate in the order established
by the Civil Code for intestate estates.

According to Professor Balane, the draft code submitted by the

Commission to Congress abolished all the reservas and
reversiones, but on the floor of Congress, the restoration of the
reserva troncal was proposed and approved, and incorporated in
the
new Code as Article 891 (58 Phil. LJ 393).

THE CURRENT STATE OF RESERVA TRONCAL

Criticisms abound when the concept of reserva troncal is played

out in the current status quo. Legal practitioners as well as
authors and law professors criticized primarily its confusing and
tedious application, as well as its archaic treatment of property.

In fact, the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago saw no

compelling reason to retain this archaic provision, for which
reason that she authored Senate Bill 2512 (15 December 2014),
explaining therein that reserva troncal is no longer desirable to
this day and age.

The late senator also recognized pointed to Professor Balanes

JBL Reyes lecture, and emphasized two (2) points in considering
whether to discard Article 891, to wit:

1. The reserva has its origins in the feudal system of the

Middle Ages .... There is hardly any crying need in this last
quarter of the century to keep property intact within one
family; on the contrary, the need is for diffusion rather than
concentration. Surely, treating family patrimony as if they
were feudal estates to be jealously guarded lest they fall
into the soiled hands of the great unwashed is an
anachronism that should be left in history books, where
they properly belong, and not in Civil Codes, and
 2. Reserva entails and encumbers property. An
encumbrance ... .is never conducive to the development of
property. What normally happens is that the reservista -
faced with the prospect of losing the property to the other
line, and therefore unable to transmit the property to his
own heirs - will allow the property to stagnate, will not
introduce permanent improvements thereon, will refuse to
invest on it - all in all a thoroughly bad and economically
unsalutary situation.

Senator Santiago also points to Castan when he said: the

institution of the reservas is hardly consistent with the principles
of strict law, let alone with the spirit of modern law, the reservas
are based on a spirit of distrust and suspicion from which
modern law is veering away, aware that the regime (of reservas)
is unjust in principle and sterile in practice (4 Castan, Derecho
Civil Espanol, Comun y Floral 185 (6th ed. 1944), quoted in and
translated by Balane).

Said bill is yet to be passed into law.

Be that as it may, Reserva Troncal remains part of Philippine Law

and remains a yardstick to determine legal proficiency, if not as a
means for law professors to challenge their students accordingly.