Tangled web in Yansons’ feud – 2

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

The Love Visayas Express Transport, Inc. is still applying for the franchise of its Panay routes and I have no information whether Barotac Viejo Mayor Niel Tupas has issued the certification that Rodney Santarin requested. But whether or not the mayor did is unimportant; it served its purpose in exposing this move by the Yanson 3. Of course, even at this stage, the Yanson 3 or Santarin can still deny or rebut the conclusions in this column. In fact, they are welcome at any time to send their refutation.

That the address of the corporation is Capitolville might be coincidental and the Yansons are not at all owners of Love Visayas Transport Express but the facts are so clear that the conclusion is inescapable. Only a denial can remove this suspicion and since there had been none, we proceed on the assumption that the Yanson 3 or one or two of them are the owners.

I learned that the Yanson ownership of the new company is now on social media and that so far had not been denied.

There will be implications in the corporate conflict in the family. By forming a competing company the claim of the Yanson 3 as the legitimate board of directors of the Yanson Group of Bus Companies will be adversely affected as their action will be considered a conflict of interest. In fact, their action can be construed as sabotage.

Insider information in the head office of VTI in Bacolod says that there is a “gradual siphoning out of machineries, equipment, bus body parts, and other assets from the Vallacar Transit compound in Mansilingan to an undisclosed place.” This operation cannot be hidden considering the nature of the properties but they can be covered up as legitimate. However, insiders in the company know that the company is being bled on orders.

If this were true, what can we call this operation? There surely is a common name for these actions that strip the company of its assets. However, if these were not accounted for they will be eventually discovered.

I recall what happened to the missing millions from VTI where the expenditures were made to appear legitimate but not reported as required by company rules. The findings of the SGV accounting firm cannot be denied and in fact, was the trigger point in the family feud.

There seems to be a similarity in this reported operation involving machineries and equipment. Were the earlier unreported withdrawals of company funds and payments to unverified persons already part of a grand plan to destroy VTI and install a new corporation?

One can even suspect that this new operation indicates that the incumbent board of directors are uncertain of their hold of the company; or looking at it at another way, why would the present board bleed their company dry? Similarly, why would they organize a competing company when they have legitimate and solid proof they are the majority shareholders?

Unless this is the intent – destroy the company, in which case the ramifications are worse.

One observer of the Yanson family feud shared his thoughts in an email on this development. He said, if the Yanson 3 “firmly believe that they are the legitimate Board of Directors, then why sabotage your own company?  Unless you are not convinced of the validity of your claims, and even worse, that your claim rests on shaky foundation or basis.”

The observer concluded that “at the bottom of all these considerations is the legacy of Ricardo B. Yanson.  Now the public will know as to who between the Y4 and the Y2 are really working for the preservation of the patriarch’s legacy.”

Indeed, the operation points to the dismantling of the legacy of Ricardo Yanson and the installation of another, a matriarchate perhaps? If this were the intentions then there is logic in the creation of a new corporation and the bleeding of the patriarchate.

In the process, because the operation cannot stand the light of day, it has to be woven in deception. The result, as Sir Walter Scot predicts, is a tangled web of public and legal battle and the dismantling of the family that Ricardo Yanson so meticulously built. He had his premonition but probably did not see the video of his last birthday.

With the deception uncovered, will the untangling begin?