If not Emily Yanson, who was?

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

I read last week’s news report and a follow-up story about the finding by the Department of Justice “probable cause to charge Emily V. Yanson with four counts of falsification of public documents and five counts of perjury.” The lawyer of the Yanson 3, Norman Golez, sent this report to the press with a statement that the information would be filed “any time soon.”

The report also said that the lawyers of the Yanson 4 will question this charge of falsification and perjury against Emily Yanson.

What is the case about? According to Golez, the DOJ found Emily to have probably committed the crime of “falsification of public documents” because she made “untruthful statements in the General Information Sheets (GIS) of Vallacar Transit Inc. (VTI) for the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

Golez was reported to have further said that “as the corporate secretary of VTI, Yanson repeatedly made it appear in several notarized documents that she is a stockholder and director of VTI, that her mother Olivia Yanson is not anymore a stockholder and director of VTI, and that Leo Rey Yanson is no longer the chairman of the board and president of VTI.”

Emily Yanson, the lawyer said, was not able to prove that she is a stockholder and a director of VTI. “To be a director, one must own at least one share in the corporation. Any director who ceases to be the owner of at least one share in the corporation ceases to be a director,” he explained.

Golez also said “that the DOJ declared that the Extrajudicial Settlement (EJS) of Estate of Ricardo B. Yanson Sr., the Amended Extrajudicial Settlement and the Certificate Authorizing Registration (CAR) submitted by Emily Yanson are not competent proofs that she is a stockholder of VTI.”

These documents merely show that she has hereditary rights over the estate of her deceased father. They do not automatically vest a right of ownership over the shares of stock in VTI, he said.

On the other hand, “Olivia Yanson is a stockholder of record of VTI”, he said. He did not say which record.

“The DOJ also found probable cause to charge Emily Yanson with five counts of perjury. In the respective last pages of 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 GIS of VTI, she made sworn statements she subscribed before a notary public of Bacolod that the information found in said documents were true, accurate, timely and complete,” Golez claimed.

Moreover, Golez said that “it was in the same documents where she made the false assertion that she was a stockholder and director of VTI and that OVY was no longer a stockholder and director of VTI.”

Based on the findings made by the DOJ, Yanson 4’s (Emily, Ricardo and Roy Yanson, and Celina Lopez) claim that they own majority stockholdings of VTI equivalent to 61.6 percent and that the special board meeting they held on July 7, 2019 was valid, do not have legs to stand on,” Golez insisted. That was self-serving because the ownership issue has not been settled yet.

He admitted, however, that “the estate of RBY has not yet been settled but declared nevertheless that the “Yanson 3, which consists of Leo Rey Yanson, Ginnette Yanson Dumancas and Olivia Yanson, also representing the estate of Ricardo Yanson Sr., still hold the majority stockholdings of VTI.” If the estate has not been settled, how can one faction claim majority ownership over the others?

Since last year, I had gone over the family documents and I find the conclusions of the DOJ rather mysterious. If Emily Yanson was signing the GIS since 2016 and she was not the secretary, who was the corporate secretary? If Emily was not a director and secretary and was signing the GIS, what did Olivia, Leo and Ginnette, the supposed majority owners, do when she was submitting supposedly false and perjurious GIS? Strange indeed.

It is unbelievable, bizarre and absurd that for at least three years (2016, 2017, 2018), if Emily was not the corporate secretary, taking and reading the minutes, signing certifications, and keeping corporate records, all the directors did not notice her “criminal” presence in their board meetings.

Actions speak louder than words. Were the Yanson 3 silent because they knew she was a stockholder and corporate secretary?