A LAWYER for the four siblings of the Yanson Family said 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 grave coercion charges.
In a statement issued by the group's legal counsel, lawyer Carlo Joaquin Narvasa, he said the CIDG was used by the legal camp of the opposing group to harass his clients Roy Yanson, Ricardo Yanson Jr., Emily Yanson, and Celina Yanson-Lopez over the weekend in order to ensure they had no recourse for posting bail as courts are closed and immediate release orders are unavailing.
During the hearing of Y4's motion to suspend the proceedings and hold in abeyance the issuance of the warrant last Friday, May 29, Narvasa said not even the judge mentioned about the implementation of any warrant as it was put on hold last March and not implemented considering that said motion was timely filed by the lawyers of the Y4 and had yet to be resolved with finality.
He also pointed out the judge did not inform the defense counsel at the hearing last Friday of any warrant of arrest that it may have previously issued or will cause to implement over the weekend.
As of date, neither the accused nor their lawyers have received any notice from the court that a warrant of arrest had already been issued.
Narvasa said the Yanson 4's legal team have expressed their concern that certain individuals are attempting to misuse the court system through the misrepresentation of the warrant's "unofficial" release and implementation, as his clients remain entitled to remedies available to them under the law.
"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," Narvasa said.
The Yanson 4's legal team also found the move strange as to how news and copies of the purported warrant 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 Bacolod media as early as Friday, May 29, or two days before its dubious implementation on a Sunday morning when courts are closed, and why those warrants dated March 10, 2020 was never implemented even before enhanced community quarantine was imposed in Bacolod on March 17, 2020.
"Was the CIDG not working during ECQ, or was it because they never knew and were never in receipt of those 'warrants' until the lawyers of the [opposing group] were disallowed from appearing as counsel for complainant at last Friday's hearing?" Narvasa questioned.
The group's legal counsel further questioned as to why did the lawyer who was disallowed by the court to participate at Friday's hearing for lack of any authority to intervene made statements to the media prophesizing that the March 10 warrant will be served soon, when he and the three other lawyers who appeared with him at the Friday hearing were excluded from the proceedings for lack of authority as confirmed by the public prosecutors who attended the Friday hearing.
He added what is mystifying is the suspicious circumstances upon which this unissued warrant found its way for "service" to the CIDG, its being "served" on the Yanson 4 on a Sunday morning, and the lawyers representing the other side of the intra-corporate dispute among the Yanson 4 and their other family members knowledge about its non-issuance since March 10, 2020 with the warrants suddenly finding its way to the offices not of the Bacolod Police but of the CIDG whose officers responsible for the violent takeover by the opposing group of VTI's Mansilingan offices in August 2019 had been sued before the Ombudsman and Regional Trial Court in its aftermath.
"The Yanson 4 wait for more dirty tactics being employed on them by the [opposition]. 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.