Contagion of the Yanson feud – 4

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

With all the hullabaloo of news, fake and otherwise, and an avalanche of opinions and preaching of unheard-of pundits that have occupied our waking hours, let me recapitulate the precedence of this discussion on the contagion of the feud in the family of Ricardo B. Yanson.

The family conflict had spanned out and affected other people in the attempt of the matriarch Olivia to strike at her daughter Emily and in the process injured the innocents.

Ricardo had passed on to history with the thought he had built a family of unity and harmony and a transportation business empire unequaled in the history of Negros and in the Philippines, if not in Southeast Asia. Now the family is disunited, the mother running after her children in an effort to take control of the company that Ricardo denied her while he was alive.

CJ Nicolas Causing and his family became victims of Olivia’s war against her children, collateral damage as the military would call it, but they are innocents caught in the crossfire. It seems Olivia would spare no one in her obsession to take all that Ricardo left for the family to share equitably.

Nicolas and family live in a rented apartment in Sta. Clara Executive Village in Barangay Mandalagan. Olivia Yanson claimed ownership of this apartment and on the guise she would have it rehabilitated because of its alleged state of disrepair, she wanted the Causings to vacate. The Causings are not the only ones told to vacate; others just left when told to leave.

The Causings refused because they have a contract until April 2021. The contract was entered into with Emily who had the actual and peaceful position of six apartments in the subdivision for over 20 years and continuously even after the death of her father. She signed the contracts with the tenants which were respected until Olivia took over the Yanson companies. She is not content even though she has more than enough but her rage against her four children remained intense.

After Olivia and her two children, forcibly took over the transportation company and feeling perhaps the same tactics will succeed against Emily, Olivia’s enforcers moved against the blameless tenants of the Yanson apartments. For the other tenants, it was easy but not with Nico Causing who stood by his rights.

And so the virus of the family feud infected other people who bowed to the power of deadly weapons and possibly of money.

To force the ejection of Nico, Olivia’s representatives brought in the Ceneco personnel to cut off electricity although they had a baby that needed air conditioning and had no arrears. The Baciwa service crew headed by their general manager came to cut off their water supply although the Causings are updated in their payments.

The Causings could just have succumbed just like lambs led to slaughter but not all are sheep so he kept his ground. A woman enforcer of Olivia, Marilyn Lopez filed a complaint for ejection with Barangay Mandalagan Chairman Parreño. This was followed by a demand from Olivia’s lawyer, Victoria Tagarao who had a notice posted declaring the apartment as private property, prohibiting entry and informing Causing to vacate.

To force the Causings to leave, security guards employed by Olivia or whoever acted on her behalf, arrived at the apartment but the Causings had also hired security guards to protect themselves. There was a stand-off.

Enter the President of the Sta. Clara Executive Village Residents Association who probably got bitten by the Yanson family feud virus that she acted what can be considered a violation of reported prior agreements between her and Emily Yanson.

I learned recently this new information involving the association and an agreement for a peaceful solution of the Causing case. It interested me because the association joined in the bully manner of the ejectment that placed the Causings in a situation not of their own making but a result of spite. Injustice is always abhorrent.

The association was drawn into the conflict because its president allegedly reneged on her words to Emily. Should not the President of the association, Mrs. Nelly D. Duckett, have taken a neutral position? But why did she take sides and risk losing her word of honor?

Let’s continue tomorrow.