BACOLOD City – Sycip, Gorres and Velayo (SGV), the country’s top accounting firm, cleared Vallacar Transit Inc.’s (VTI) Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Celina Yanson-Lopez of any liability in the alleged P380-million fund mess.
Through legal counsel Poblador, Bautista and Reyes Law Office, SGV made the clarification shortly after several reports were published that the camp of former VTI president Leo Rey Yanson and Yanson clan matriarch Olivia Yanson was accusing Yanson-Lopez of dipping her fingers in the corporate cookie jar last 2018.
Atty. Sheila Sison, a partner in Fortun Narvasa & Salazar Law Office and legal counsel of Yanson-Lopez and her three other siblings Roy, Ricky and Emily (collectively known as the Yanson 4), earlier described the accusations against her client as untrue and baseless.
Incumbent VTI president Roy Yanson, in an informal press conference with Bacolod City-based journalists, said the discovery of the funds mess might have led to the break which caused the recent squabble among members of the Yanson 4-dominated VTI board.
Disagreements between the clan’s matriarch Olivia and the Yanson siblings on how to treat those involved in the funds mess broke the once stable board into the majority block — Roy, Ricky, Celina and Emily.
The minority led by Leo Rey and Ginnette Yanson-Dumancas who sided with their mother, was also the first to protest the filing of criminal charges against a former company official who was described as one of the matriarch’s pet employees.
Acting upon the written request of Atty. Sigfrid Fortun, senior partner of Fortun Narvasa & Salazar Law Office, SGV asked its legal counsel to provide a reply to the inquiry and clarify if its audit report indeed referred to Yanson-Lopez as the one responsible for the reported missing funds.
In a letter dated Sept. 10, 2019, Poblador Bautista and Reyes Law Offices clarified that: “Without disclosing the contents of its report, SGV can confirm that the Report did not refer to Ms. Yanson-Lopez as the person directly liable for the loss of the funds.”
The firm’s senior partner, Atty. Alexander J. Poblador and Atty. Deogracias G. Fellone, both signed the letter on behalf of SGV.
It was SGV that the Yansons asked to conduct an independent audit after Yanson-Lopez herself as CFO pushed for the investigation of several transactions made at VTI’s Manila Purchasing Office (MPO) sometime in 2018. There were encashments and withdrawals thru falsified and forged signed checks.
The MPO was then headed by a company official who had since been removed from the post. Sources said it was the responsibility of this former official to identify and request procurements for the Yanson Group of Bus Companies./PN
