THE Metropolitan Trial Court of Makati has suspended the proceedings and hold the issuance of warrants of arrest in abeyance against Anna Isabella Galvez, lawyer of the Yanson 4, after granting her motion, said lawyer Carlo Joaquin Narvasa in a press statement.
The Office of the City Prosecutor of Makati earlier indicted Galvez, the assistant corporate secretary of the Vallacar Transit Inc. (VTI) faction of the Yanson 4, for "falsification of public documents and perjury."
In a resolution dated October 28, Narvasa, who is the lead counsel of the Yanson 4, said that Judge Xavier del Castillo confirmed the existence of a prejudicial question in a separate civil action before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Bacolod City, which is determinative of the guilt of or innocence of the accused in the criminal cases, and must be resolved first before the criminal action can proceed.
Should the RTC of Bacolod City find the July 2019 Board meeting of VTI valid, including the resolutions and corporate action adopted by its Board of Directors at the said meeting and thereafter, it would follow that the statements made by Galvez in the company's 2020 General Information Sheet filed with the Security Exchange Commission are truthful thus, there could be no falsification of a public document, Narvasa said.
He added that if the July 7, 2019 VTI Board Meeting is upheld by the RTC Bacolod, Galvez and the Yanson 4, composed of siblings Ricardo Jr., Roy, Emily and Celina, cannot be considered to have made a willful assertion of falsehood and for perjury to be committed by them.
Judge del Castillo then said that both criminal actions for falsification and perjury hinge on the final determination by the Bacolod court of the pending intra-corporate suit between the warring Yanson factions in commercial court case number 19-119, Narvasa added.