he reserva troncal arose

as had been finally decided by the Court of Appeals in

Special Proceeding No. 23
when Agustina acquired by operation of law all the pro
perties of her descendant Adolfo (grandson), who acquired them by gratuitous tit
le from another ascendant, Isabel (Adolfo's mother).

According to Manresa, the reserva is extinguished upon the death of the reservis
ta, as it then becomes a right of full ownership on the part of the reservatario
s, who can bring a reivindicatory suit therefor. Nonetheless, this right, if not
exercised within the time for recovering real properties, can be lost by prescr
iption:
||| (Carillo v. de Paz, G.R. No. L-22601, [October 28, 1966], 124 PHIL 1075-1082
)1) In the instant case, the properties in question were indubitably reservable
properties in the hands of Mrs. Legarda. Undoubtedly, she was a reservor. The re
servation became a certainty when at the time of her death the reservees or rela
tives within the third degree of the prepositus Filomena Legarda were living or
they survived Mrs. Legarda.
2) We hold that Mrs. Legarda could not convey in her holographic will to her six
teen grandchildren the reservable properties which she had inherited from her da
ughter Filomena because the reservable properties did not form part of her estat
e. The reservor cannot make a disposition mortis causa of the reservable propert
ies as long as the reservees survived the reservor.
Resersa troncal is also called lineal, familiar, extreordinaria o semi-troncal.
It is provided for in Article 811 of the Spanish Civil Code now article 891 of t
he Civil Code. In reserva ironcal, (1) a descendant inherited or acquired by gra
tuitous title property from an ascendant or from a brother or sister; (2) the sa
me property is inherited by another ascendant or is acquired by him by operation
of law from the said descendant, and (3) the said ascendant should reserve the
said property for the benefit of relatives who are within the third degree from
the deceased descendant (prepositus) who belong to the tine from which the prope
rty came.
The three transmissions involved are: (1) a first transmission by lucrative titl
e (inheritance or donation) from an ascendant or brother or sister to the deceas
ed descendant; (2) a posterior transmission, by operation of law (intestate succ
ession or legitime) from the deceased descendant (causante de la reserva) in fav
or of another ascendant, the reservor or reservista, which two transmissions pre
cede the reservation, and (3) a third transmission of the same property (in cons
equence of the reservation) from the reservor to the reservees (reservatarios) o
r the relatives within the third degree from the deceased descendant belonging t
o the line of the first ascendant, brother or sister of the deceased descendant
(6 Castan Toneas, Derecho Civil, Part I, 1960, 6th Ed., pp. 198-9). If there are
only two transmissions there is no reserva.