Yanson cases: who lied?

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

 

I was on the last phase of the commentary on the Nicolas Causing case when a November 26 press statement came out of the office of Atty. Carlo Joaquin Narvasa, the lawyer of the four Yanson children. The information released to the public involves the dismissal last month by the Department of Justice of two cases filed against them.

One case was filed by Olivia V. Yanson and the other by supporters of Leo Rey Yanson and Ginnette Dumancas or the Y2, against Roy, Emily and Ricardo Yanson Jr., and Ma. Lourdes Celina Lopez, also known as the Y4. The intention of these suits, the press statement said, is clearly “to legitimize their control over Vallacar Transit, Inc. (VTI), despite the Y4s majority shareholdings of 61.16% of its outstanding capital stock.”

Though the cases are directly related to the corporate coup and other plans of Olivia, let us discuss them separately because the dramatis personae involved are different in the second case. Indeed, not only different but are strangers, nonentities to the family agreements.

As we know the Y2 had forcibly taken over the VTI compound with the use of the police that was sanctioned by top PNP officials despite the absence of a court order. That was extremely unusual because the law enforcers allowed themselves to turn law violators. And we are not under martial law. They have their reasons, so we leave them at that. There is always a time for a reckoning.

There must have been power greater than the law that the police raided the VTI compound to install a board that claims legitimacy which is covered with heavy clouds of doubt if not preposterousness. What power was invoked, your guess is as good as mine, but we have also our reasons for thinking differently.

Anyway, to avoid violence, the Y4 just left the premises to the aggressors. Since then the Y2 and individuals who are not members of the Yanson family joined the VTI board of directors in violation of the Family Constitution and the law.

One ploy to legitimize their unlawful take over is to file cases – who knows others might “believe” them for all sorts of motivations or to at least gain some time for more insidious purposes. I am compiling information on one of the hypotheses on why they did the unlawful deed. But that is for later discussion together with a stunning report that Bacolod judges had a nice time in a resort in Oriental Negros.

Let us take the first case which was filed by Olivia V. Yanson against her four children. Her complaint was for qualified theft, perjury and falsification. According to the report, Olivia claims that the Y4 “had taken her conjugal shares in VTI and apportioned them among the siblings without her consent, through two Extra Judicial Settlement documents covering her husband’s, Ricardo V. Yanson, Sr. estate.”

I wonder how theft can be committed through two extra-judicial settlements that the accuser had agreed and bound herself. Is there theft if one gave voluntarily and kept silent for years? Or is this merely a delusion? Or perhaps another bad legal advice?

I am also surprised that if she said the four children stole her share in the first settlement how could she had been victimized in the next? It is said that if you were robbed once that is unfortunate; it is not your fault. But to be robbed twice in the same manner and persons and you did not even complain in the first, what is that? Selective or memory loss?

In last week’s discussion, I cited this settlement where Olivia agreed to the partition of the family properties so that the will and legacy of their patriarch Ricardo and their properties would be preserved. She had her signature there, nobody forced her so that for all intents and purposes she assented to the act with full knowledge and understanding since she was not physically or mentally infirmed at the time she signed the documents, or even until now. Unless I am wrong about this and she is being manipulated by stoking her emotions.

If she insists and continues to deny even in writing and under oath, is she not telling a conscious lie? And for what?

Continued tomorrow.