A Bacolod court has upheld the validity of the last will and testament of businesswoman Olivia Yanson, who established the biggest bus company in the Philippines, which disinherited four of her children while naming two as universal heirs.
According to a BusinessMirror report, the Bacolod City Regional Trial Court Branch 44 accepted the last will and testament of the head of the Yanson Group of Bus Companies as official and valid. The will bequeathed the family assets to her children, Leo Rey and Ginnette, while Roy, Emily, Ma. Lourdes Celina and Ricardo Jr. – the so-called “Yanson 4” – get nothing.
The “Yanson 4” have been locked in a boardroom standoff against their two siblings, claiming that they unduly controlled and influenced their mother to get more favors from her.
Presiding Judge Ana Celeste P. Bernad, however, said the Yanson 4 siblings were unable to prove that such undue influence was exerted on Olivia.
The matriarch, who penned the will when she was 85, said she had a mind that’s “unbroken, unimpaired or unshattered by disease, injury or other cause at that time.”
Yanson and her husband, the late Ricardo Yanson Sr., were the forces behind Vallacar Transit Inc. Established in 1968, the company has become the largest bus operator in the Philippines.