The Court of Appeals (CA) ordered four Yanson siblings to surrender certain documents deemed by a lower court as essential evidence in a criminal case.
The CA’s 20th Division, on July 30, 2024, amended a decision asking Roy Yanson, Ma. Lourdes Celina Lopez, Ricardo Yanson Jr., and Emily Yanson, or the “Yanson 4”, to surrender certificates of title and related documents they previously admitted to be in their possession.
The Yanson 4 tried to take over Vallacar Transit Inc. (VTI) in 2019. The court’s amended decision granted the petition for certiorari filed by the VTI management, led by president and chief executive officer Leo Rey Yanson, and corporate secretary Olivia Yanson, the matriarch of the Yanson Group.
The CA directed the Yanson 4 to submit to the custody of the trial court various original and certified true copies of certificates of title and related documents admitted to be in their possession.
“The court a quo is directed to identify the subject documents to be surrendered, as indicated in the information, and as identified by the prosecutor in Criminal Case No. 20-52097, and in the private respondents’ letter addressed to the Register of Deeds, and in their comment to the DOJ,” the amended decision, penned by Associate Justice Bautista Corpin Jr., states.
The amended order was directed to Yanson 4, along with Judge Ana Celester Bernad, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 44 in Bacolod City, VTI, and Hernan Omecillo.
Bernad previously denied the urgent motion to order the four Yanson siblings to surrender the documents they seized from VTI in 2019, a statement from the VTI management said, adding the judge also denied the motion for reconsideration on the case.
The items include original certificates of title of the Yanson Group of Bus Companies’ properties and those registered under the name of the Yanson family, as well as supporting documents, such as tax declarations, vicinity maps, deeds of sale, and memorandum of agreements, etc.
Court records show that on June 9, 2020, the acting Bacolod City prosecutor accused the Yanson 4 of the crime of qualified theft, which is penalized under Article 310, in relation to Article 308 of the Revised Penal Code.
As charged in the prosecutor’s information, the respondents, representing themselves as the new officers of VTI, being then stockholders, directors, and officers of the corporation, took and carried away various items, including important documents to which they had access by reason of their fiduciary capacity in the company.
In its amended decision, the CA dispelled the notion that the purpose for placing the subject documents under custodia legis is to ensure the provision or preservation of evidence for the benefit of the petitioner in the prosecution of Criminal Case No. 20-52098 for qualified theft (main case).
“To clarify, it is meant as an ancillary measure in order to secure the effective adjudication and enforcement of the rights of all the parties, once the main case has run its proper course,” the CA said. “Ours was a grant of provisional relief so as to preserve the status quo, until such time that the merits of the main case can be heard by the trial court.”
The CA said that having voluntarily admitted possession of the subject documents, not just in official correspondence, but also in filings related to the main case, such as their comment and several other pleadings, the Yanson 4 could not claim that the directive to surrender these documents to the court a quo for safekeeping violates their right against self-incrimination.
“Our assailed decision simply directed respondents Yanson to surrender the subject documents, as indicated in the information and admitted in their letter to the Register of Deeds and comment to the DOJ, to the trial court in order to place these in custodia legis. Such relief being ancillary to the main case, the parties can flesh out a list of the subject documents with the court a quo, submitting any other supporting documents as the latter may require,” it said.
“In fine, while the parties herein have presented no new and convincing documents which would justify a modification or reversal of our assailed decision, we deem it best to amend the same in order to include a corresponding director for the court a quo,” the appellate court said. ||
