‘SHOW ME THE MONEY’: Yansons accuse each other of misusing VTI’s money

By: Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – The feud wracking the Yanson clan is worsening as the two opposing camps are now accusing each other of squandering the money of Vallacar Transit Inc. (VTI), operator of Ceres bus lines all over the country.

On Thursday, Olivia Yanson, the matriarch of the Yanson family, asked one of her daughters, Ma. Lourdes Celina Y. Lopez who heads the Finance Division, to account for the alleged missing P380 million from VTI’s coffers.

Olivia Yanson and another daughter, Ginette, are siding with Leo Rey Yanson who was ousted as president and CEO of VTI by his elder brother Roy.

Roy has the backing of his brother Ricardo Jr. and sisters Emily and Celina.

Olivia made the demand to Celina in a signed letter which was distributed to reporters here.

The letter was in response to a June 21, 2019 memorandum addressed to finance managers and branch managers, specifically ordering them “to discontinue and disallow any release of cash or disbursement of any form ostensibly to protect the company finances.”

Olivia pointed out in the letter to Celina that “while you speak of measures to protect the company from any unexplained and unliquidated expenses that would eventually pull the company down, you conveniently forgot or omitted the fact that sometime in May 2018 your division, the Finance Division of which you are the Chief Finance Officer, was and continues to be unable to explain the loss of P380 million, more or less.”

“The doctrine of command responsibility ultimately rests upon the chief finance officer, who to date has neither explained the loss nor found ways to rectify the said loss, needless to say the said amount is not little, by any stretch of imagination,” the matriarch added.

“Hence it is ironic that in your memo of date, your office speaks of ‘fixing its practices’ without in fact fixing the anomaly created by your office.”

Olivia said she asked Celina to take a short leave of absence “so that I could find out how the loss came about and how to remedy the same since I know that the personnel know and respect me as the matriarch and founder of our companies.”

“Despite the internal and external audits conducted, you have continued to remain adamant in refusing the audits conducted, you have continued to remain adamant in refusing to allow auditors the courtesy of full cooperation of your staff in order to get at the truth. If there is anything hidden or any motive discovered, you have the fiduciary obligation to bear the blame of such catastrophic loss.”

Olivia said Celina and company should prove that they have the legal right to claim and control the management of VTI.

“I put on record the fact that you and your siblings have the obligation of proving to the court that indeed you have the majority of the board, since you claim that you do, the burden of proof to show your holding majority number of votes is upon you, I hold the contrary view, for many reasons, not the least of which is that our businesses came from the endeavors not of any of you but of me and your late father. You came into the business full grown so to speak but I and your father started the business from scratch. How can you now allege majority, apparently excluding me?” Olivia asked.

 

‘COVER-UP’

In a separate statement, Celina accused her brother Leo Rey Yanson of “using the ongoing family dispute to mask several millions of illicit fund withdrawals.”

Celina claimed that Leo Rey made several withdrawals amounting to millions of pesos without management approval.

“As a company policy, an existing memorandum is being enforced overseeing the release of company funds. Under the memorandum, fund withdrawals require the approval of the board of directors, and the younger Yanson’s acts violated this company policy.”

“This unauthorized act of the former Vallacar Transit president endangered the financial stability of the company, as this jeopardized the company’s most valued asset—its employees. The truckload of cash is allocated for salary payment and benefits of the company’s 18,000 employees,” Celina said.

Celina said the management discovered Leo Rey’s withdrawals only from the period from June 1 to June 17, 2019.

“There is a possibility that the former company president had been doing the unauthorized withdrawals even before,” she added.

Sharing her disappointment on the issue, Yanson-Lopez said, “What is so unfair is that the removal of Leo Rey Yanson is being blamed for this alleged ongoing estate negotiations of our late father, Ricardo Yanson, the founder of our company. That is a separate matter.”

“Leo Rey was removed as president of the company for violating company rules on illegal withdrawal of funds that in turn affects the welfare of our employees. The management had investigated the matter and he was asked to explain. Unfortunately, he could not reasonably justify why he disbursed the missing funds without prior board approvals, then we needed to take action for the company and for its employees.”

The company’s board of directors decided to change the roster of the management and appointed Roy Yanson as President and head of operations; Ma. Lourdes Celina Yanson-Lopez as treasurer and head of Finance and Management; Information System, Emily Yanson as the Corporate Secretary and Head of Administration; Ricardo Yanson Jr. as the Vice President for Maintenance; and Atty. Jose Jonathan Ealdama as Vice President for legal.