Other side of the Causing case-7

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

 

Last week I debunked the defense of Marilyn Lopez and Atty. Roland Pugoy that described the reaction of Nicolas Causing as an “announcement” as if Nico was glad about the disconnection. The natural reaction would either be a silent submission against a powerful force or indignation like shouting. If people would shout and curse on a mere brownout or dry faucets, could the reaction of a paying customer be just an “announcement”?

There is a lot of hand washing in this case that effectively throws all the blame and guilt to Olivia Yanson. It is as if the trio are saying: sue Olivia who issued the order. They have a point there, but the fact is that they were the ones caught on the scene and done the deed.

I cannot reiterate enough that the issue here is not the disconnection alone, but the manner of ejecting the Causings to vacate the apartment as was done in other units – use of intimidation.

If the vacancy of the units were the ultimate goal, should not the matter be settled between Emily and Olivia? That is difficult at this time of the family feud. However a case to eject the Causings was filed, so can’t they wait for the wheels of justice to grind, albeit so slowly? Or wait a year for the lease to expire?

But it seems Olivia could not wait, surely not for money because she has more than enough but she yielded to the temptation (or bad advice?) to resort to bully tactics to spite Emily. Unfortunately for the trio, they were willing instruments to terrorize the tenant. They became complicit so that they should not cry out as if they were victims.

At the start, I mentioned the main defense of the Atty. Juliana Carbon, Marilyn Lopez and Atty. Roland Pugoy that Olivia Yanson owns the apartment. Ergo, they can demand that the family vacate the premises, ignoring the valid lease contract that the Causings signed with Emily Yanson and legal processes.

The Causings are not a party to the Yanson family feud and if indeed Emily went beyond her authority to lease a property which is allegedly not hers, that is between her and her mother to settle.

But who knows the extent and depth of Olivia’s anger and her penchant for shortcutting the rule of law to satisfy her wrath? She showed it in the police assault of the Ceres compound and terminal without an order from the court, the ejectment of Emily’s Ceres Pasalubong stores although there existed a family agreement and the “election” of non-family members in the Vallacar Transit Corporation in violation of the Family Constitution. If she could get away (or so she thinks) with these more difficult and hazardous bulldozing, she could get away with a small-time problem that the Causings posed.

So Olivia or her advisers must have opined – what is the Causing family in relation to strong opponents? The refusal of Nico to be forcibly ejected must have raised the fury of Olivia that she resorted to Hitlerian methods in direct defiance of the law. And she has people who would enforce her will regardless of the law and humanitarian considerations.

She triumphed against more formidable obstacles, she surely believes she could run roughshod over the “small-time” Causings. She was wrong. A David can dare a Goliath because David was on the side of blamelessness and righteousness. The Causings did not only resist her, they sued her hirelings. This defiance, ironically is the first in this once in a lifetime feud in Negros.

And so emboldened and to prove her allegation that her boss owned the apartment, Lopez attached to her counter-affidavit a photocopy of the Transfer Certificate of Title No. T-229994 dated September 1998. Atty. Carbon did the same to her counter-affidavit plus the water connection meter number in the name of Olivia V. Yanson.

From the surface, Olivia Yanson appears the owner, but “things are not what they seem,” the poet Wordsworth Longfellow wrote. Arrogance can cloud the mind. Olivia did not go through the legal process because if she did, she must prove that indeed she is the sole and absolute owner of the apartment, a burden she loathes to face.

Continued tomorrow.