BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOS City – The legal counsel of Roy Yanson, Ricardo Yanson Jr., Emily Yanson, and Celina Yanson-Lopez claimed his clients were harassed by members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) over the weekend, after the reported release of arrest warrants against them on a grave coercion charge.
In a statement, Atty. Carlo Joaquin Narvasa said his clients were harassed so that they could not post bail.
Courts were closed on weekends and as such, immediate release orders were unavailing, he explained.
Members of the Yanson family – owners of Vallacar Transit, Inc. (VTI), the largest bus company in the Philippines – have been feuding since last year over the control of their multibillion-peso buses that operate in the Visayas and Mindanao.
During the hearing of the Yanson 4’s motion to suspend the proceedings and hold in abeyance the issuance of the warrant of arrest Friday last week, Narvasa said not even the court judge mentioned about the implementation of any warrant; it was put on hold in March.
The motion was timely filed by the lawyers of the Yanson 4 and had yet to be resolved with finality, Narvasa added.
He also pointed out that the judge did not inform the defense counsel during Friday’s hearing of any warrant of arrest that it may have previously issued or will cause to implement over the weekend.
To date, neither the accused nor their lawyers have received any notice from the court that a warrant of arrest had already been issued, according to Narvasa.
The Yanson 4’s legal team expressed concern that certain quarters could be attempting to misuse the court system through the misrepresentation of the warrant’s “unofficial” release and implementation.
“The Yanson 4 know their rights under the Constitution and law as accused in a sham criminal suit filed against them as members of the Board of Directors of VTI. They stand firm in their belief that the charges are trumped-up, and they still have remedies for the revocation of the warrant, or even posting bail,” added Narvasa.
The Yanson 4’s legal team also found the move “strange” as to how news and copies of the purported warrants of arrest that was not released by the court nor had been brought to the attention of their counsel, had been circulated among members of the media in this city as early as Friday, May 29.
What was mystifying, it added, were the circumstances upon which the unissued warrant found its way for “service” to the CIDG on a Sunday morning.
“The Yanson 4 wait for more dirty tactics… This assumes they and their crew will not be embarrassed, no different from the CIDG’s empty service of the warrant this [Sunday morning],” Narvasa added./PN
