. . . any challenge to the validity of a will, any objection to the authentication thereof, and every demand or claim which any heir, legatee or party interested in a testate or intestate succession may make, must be acted upon and decided within the same special proceedings, not in a separate action, and the same judge having jurisdiction in the administration of the estate shall take cognizance of the question raised, inasmuch as when the day comes he will be called upon to make distribution and adjudication of the property to the interested parties.

Pertinent to the issue interposed by the petitioners in G.R. No. L-45965 is Section 1, Rule 90 of the Rules of Court which reads:

Sec. 1. When order for distribution of residue made. — When the debts, funeral charges, and expenses of administration, the allowance to the widow, and inheritance tax, if any, chargeable to the estate in accordance with law, have been paid, the court, on application of the executor or administrator, or of a person interested in the estate, and after hearing upon notice, shall assign the residue of the estate to the persons entitled to the same, naming them and the proportions or parts, to which each is entitled, and such persons may demand and recover their respective shares from the executor or administrator, or any other person having the same in his possession. If there is a controversy before the court as to who are the lawful heirs of the deceased person or as to the distributive shares to which each person is entitled under the law, the controversy shall be heard and decided as in ordinary cases.

No distribution shall be allowed until the payment of the obligations above-mentioned has been made or provided for, unless the distributees, or any of them give a bond, in a sum to be fixed by the court, conditioned for the payment of said obligations within such time as the court directs.

Applying this rule, in the cases of De Jesus v. Daza, ³³ and Torres v. Encarnacion, ³⁴ the Court said:

. . . (T)he probate court, having the custody and control of the entire estate, is the most logical authority to effectuate this provision, within the estate proceeding, said proceeding being the most convenient one in which this power and function of the court can be exercised and performed without the necessity of requiring the parties to undergo the incovenience and litigate an entirely different action.

Some decisions of the Court pertinent to the issue that the probate court has the jurisdiction to settle the claims of an heir and the consequent adjudication of the properties, are worth mentioning. In the cases of Arroyo v. Gerona, ³⁵ and Benedicto v. Javellana, ³⁶ this Court said:

. . . any challenge to the validity of a will, any objection to the authentication thereof, and every demand or claim which any heir, legatee or party interested in a testate or intestate succession may make, must be acted upon and decided within the same special proceedings, not in a separate action, and the same judge having jurisdiction in the administration of the estate shall take cognizance of the question raised, inasmuch as when the day comes he will be called upon to make distribution and adjudication of the property to the interested parties. . . . (Emphasis supplied)

The probate court, in the exercise of its jurisdiction to distribute the estate, has the power to determine the proportion or parts to which each distributee is entitled . . .. ³⁷ A project of partition is merely a proposal for the distribution of the heredity estate which the court may accept or reject. It is the court that makes that distribution of the estate and determines the persons entitled thereto. ³⁸