‘SPARE MY SON’: Lo matriarch clears eldest son in legal tiff vs kids

By: Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – Corazon Lo, owner and founder of Negros Grace Pharmacy, clarified that her eldest son Jonathan had nothing to do with her filing of the case against the latter’s siblings.

“I have my own mind. It was my own decision,” Lo said.

She said Jonathan only helped her financially.

“Kalooy na gid ko kaayo,” she added.

She said she skipped her follow up check-up in Singapore after undergoing surgery for breast cancer.

Lo said she wants to stop speculations that Jonathan prodded her to sue her two other sons, Ian and Theodore, over control of their business.

In February 2019, Mrs. Lo filed a case before the Bacolod City Regional Trial Court (RTC) against her two sons and their wives – Ian Manuel and Ma. Paz and Theodore Manuel and Sheila Lo – in a bid to halt the sale of NGP and its subsidiaries to Ayala Healthcare Holdings Inc.

She also sought the return of ownership of their businesses to her, which is pending in the sala of RTC Judge Eduardo Sayson.

Lo said her meager savings are not even enough if she gets hospitalized.

She said she used to receive money from the company for her “long period of service” but this has stopped after she filed the case.

Lo had also lamented that she was refused entry to her office and other NGP branches.

“I am the owner and the founder yet I am not allowed to go inside my own company,” she said.

Amid their dispute, Lo called for reconciliation with her two sons saying that at 80 and a breast cancer survivor at that, she may not last long.

“I only wish that my three sons are reunited,” she added.

NGP is one of the biggest pharmacy chains in Western Visayas with more than 70 branches.

“I am fighting for my right as a mother and as the co-founder of the business,” Mrs. Lo said.

She added that she loves all her three children and has tried to reach out to her two sons but to no avail.

Still she said she maintains an open line to her sons.

She also reminded them of Exodus 20:12: “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you”.

“I am just human, it is beyond my strength. I am hoping for reconciliation of all my children before I pass away.”