By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Accounting firm SGV & Co. cleared Celina Yanson-Lopez, chief financial officer for Vallacar Transit Incorporated (VTI), parent company of the Ceres bus liner, of any liability over the P380 million unaccounted advances/liabilities. The clarification was made in response to certain allegations raised by the camp of VTI President Leo Rey Yanson, particularly Yanson matriarch Olivia Yanson.
In a letter dated September 10, 2019, the Poblador Bautista and Reyes Law Offices affirmed: “Without disclosing the contents of its report, SGV can confirm that the report did not refer to Ms. Yanson-Lopez as the person directly liable for the loss of the funds.” The firm’s senior partners, Atty. Alexander J. Poblador and Atty. Deogracias G. Fellone, both signed the letter on behalf of SGV.
An email earlier forwarded by the elder Yanson’s camp claimed the said issue stemmed from an audit report conducted by SGV & Co. that showed the CFO had at least P380 million in unaccounted advances/liabilities with the company.
“When this anomaly happened, [Yanson-Lopez] did not even call for a meeting and let her staff explain in writing why they kept on transferring funds several times for the same transaction,” Yanson noted. “[She] even instructed the internal auditors to alter the audit report.”
In response, Atty. Sheila Sison, legal counsel for Roy, Ricardo, Jr., and Emily Yanson, along with Celina Yanson-Lopez—often referred to as the ‘Yanson 4’—refuted the claims and stated the audit report did not identify Yanson-Lopez as the individual responsible for the missing funds.
“Nothing in the SGV audit report mentions or identifies Yanson-Lopez as the person responsible for the alleged unaccounted disbursements,” Sison explained. “What the report noted was that some of the transactions made lack supporting documents, which cannot be attributed to Yanson-Lopez as those supporting documents should come from the Manila Purchasing Office (MPO).”
“Perhaps, the other camp should ask the former company official who oversees that MPO for those documents,” she added.
In a statement released towards the end of last month, Yanson-Lopez pointed out, “My mother got mad at me, together with the three of us—Ricky, Roy, and Emily—because  we wanted the guy responsible for these illicit withdrawals from the MPO to be criminally charged and sent to jail,” she explained.
“When we discovered that this person was the one who orchestrated this big mess in cahoots with another, a lady cashier, the board wanted their heads,” the CFO added. “My mother intervened and, out of pity, even wanted to pay for those funds which this guy allegedly took.”
Sison characterized the allegations against the company CFO as “a blatant lie, if not a pure fabrication.”/DGB, WDJ