SENATOR Maria Ana Consuelo Madrigal has lost the second round of her legal battle to invalidate the probated will of her late billionaire aunt, Consuelo ?Chito? Madrigal-Collantes, after the Court of Appeals threw out her petition.

In a Dec. 19 resolution, a copy of which was obtained yesterday, Justices Lucas Bersamin, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, and Myrna Dimaranan-Vidal found no extrinsic fraud in the probated last will and testament of Do?a Chito, as alleged by Senator Madrigal.

The justices also ruled as baseless the senator?s claim that Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Oscar Pimentel, who presided over the probate hearings of Do?a Chito?s will in 2006, had no jurisdiction to conduct the probate hearings.

?Not being a compulsory heir, the petitioner could not legitimately insist upon a right to be notified of the probate proceedings,? the justices said.

The senator had sought to stop the Makati court after Judge Pimentel appointed corporate lawyer Perry Pe and Aurelio Montinola III, president of Bank of the Philippine Islands, as executors of the last will.

The childless Do?a Chito, 87, died on March 24 last year in her residence in North Forbes Park, leaving her husband, Marcos-era Foreign Minister Manuel Collantes, as the lone compulsory heir and inheritor of a house in Forbes and a one-hectare property in Ayala Alabang.

Instead of the senator, Do?a Chito?s will named Senator Madrigal?s elder sister, Ma. Susana ?Chu Chu? Madrigal-Eduque, who was bequeathed 40 percent of the matriarch?s undetermined residuary estate.

Another 40 percent was bequeathed to a grand nephew, with the balance of 20 percent given to another niece, lawyer Gizela M. Gonzalez-Montinola, wife of the BPI president and a partner of Pe in the Romulo Mabanta law firm.