ILOILO CITY — A new court ruling backed Olivia Yanson as majority owner of the Yanson Group of Bus Companies (YGBC) — the country’s largest bus conglomerate that includes the popular Ceres buses that has routes to this city from Manila — and not her four children.
The Bacolod City Regional Trial Court Branch 45 ruled on the civil case over the estate of patriarch Ricardo Yanson Sr. who co-founded YGBC with Olivia in 1968.
Judge Phoebe Gargantiel-Balbin nullified the extrajudicial settlement (EJS) of Ricardo Sr.’s estate on the grounds that the faction of Ricardo Jr., Roy, Emily, and Celina, known as the Yanson 4, made it appear in annex documents that their mother Olivia gave her conjugal share and subsequent share in YGBC to them.
The seven-page ruling dated Jan. 21, 2025 found that Olivia never waived her rights to the conjugal and the YGBC shares.
“The court finds that the plaintiff (Olivia) proved her case with preponderance of evidence,” said Balbin in the ruling obtained by Manila Bulletin this week.
The Yanson 4 tried to use the EJS of the estate executed after Ricardo Sr.’s death in 2015 in justifying claims as majority owners of YGBC.
The Yanson 4 used the EJS as evidence in filing cases against their mother Olivia, brother Leo Rey, and sister Ginnette.
The four Yanson siblings are reportedly fugitives with several warrants of arrest issued against them.
They are facing criminal cases of carnapping and qualified theft when they and the security agency they hired forcefully took over the main office of Vallacar Transit Inc. (VTI), a company of the YGBC, in Bacolod City for almost a month in 2019.
After Olivia was able to take back possession of VTI, several cases were filed by both parties.