THE four Yanson siblings said over the weekend that it is an assertion of rights and not greed that drove them to bring to courts their fight to take over management of big bus companies in the country.
Early this February, the four siblings, who called themselves as Yanson Four: Roy, Emily, Ma. Lourdes Lopez and Ricardo Jr., held a stockholders' meeting for the Rural Transit Mindanao Inc. (RTMI) in a hotel in Cagayan de Oro City.
RTMI is one of the companies under the Yanson Group of Bus Companies (YGBC) that operates in Mindanao.
Yanson 4 told reporters that their legal battle against their two other siblings, Leo Rey and Ginette Yanson-Dumancas, over the management of the company is not motivated by greed but out of respect to their late father, Ricardo Yanson Sr.
They said their father has made sure before he died that his shares, including that from their mother, would be equally distributed to the six children.
This is why they said a shareholders agreements, a legal instrument that ensured the transfer of shares of stocks from the Yanson patriarch and matriarch in the predominantly transportation companies under the YGBC equally to the six children, came up.
They said the agreement has been signed by the parents and children in 2013.
The Yanson 4 also maintained that the siblings signed an Extrajudicial Settlement of Estate (EJS) on December 16, 2015 and in the Amended EJS on December 20, 2017.
They said all these documents, including the Yanson Family Constitution, were signed by the family members.
"We are leaving it now to the court to decide," the Yanson 4 said.