BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The Metropolitan Trial Court of Makati has suspended proceedings and hold off issuance of arrest in abeyance against Anna Isabella Galvez, lawyer for the Yanson 4, after granting her motion, lawyer Carlo Joaquin Narvasa said.
The Office of the City Prosecutor of Makati (OCP 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 disclosed that Judge Xavier del Castillo confirmed the existence of a prejudicial question in a separate civil action before the Regional Trial Court 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 Vallacar Transit Inc 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 Atty. 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 in a statement he issued.
Similarly, he added, if the July 7, 2019 VTI Board Meeting is upheld by the RTC Bacolod, Atty. 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 also said.*
