Matriarch in corporate row appeals for respect from kids

OLIVIA V. Yanson, the 85-year-old matriarch of the Yanson Group of Bus Companies appealed to her children to honor and respect her as their mother and co-founder of the bus conglomerate.

“If you go out of your way and spend hours to be with your friends, why cannot you spare just 30 minutes a week and spend it with me? If I call your phones, you would not answer. When I visit you, you would give all reasons not to see me,” she said.

“Am I asking too much from each one of you? Many of you have not even visited me in my house since your father died. My pillow is full of tears every morning because of all the pain you are giving me. I think I don’t deserve this after I have sacrificed my life for each one of you. My only wish in the twilight of my life is to see all you as a family and not fighting one another,” Olivia said.

“Your father and myself made sure that each one of you would live more than comfortably but instead of counting your blessings, you turned against each other. If you continue to fight each other, there would be nothing left for the next generation. Be reminded that you are

only stewards of this business for the next generation and your actions would determine their future. What more do you want?” she said.

“Each one of you has already more than enough, so set aside your anger, jealousy and greed and instead work on forgiving each other so that the next generation and the generations to come can also enjoy the blessings we have left behind,” the Yanson matriarch said.

“I pray that Emily, Celina and Ricky will see the light and listen to the call of their elder brother Roy that there is no point in all these madness and at the end of the day no one wins because we are fighting our brother and sister,” Olivia said.

Olivia, together with her late husband Ricardo Vallacar Sr., established the Yanson Group in 1968 and oversaw its growth to become a bus conglomerate that now employs 18,000 individuals who provide transport services to 700,000 passengers across the country daily.

A nurse by profession, Olivia helped her husband manage the business from the ground up. “I remember before Ceres became a successful enterprise, we could even hardly buy food and to feed all our children,” she recalled.

Ceres Liner is one of the bus brands of Vallacar Transit Inc. (VTI), the largest company under the Yanson Group.

Olivia reminded her children about the hardship that they went through as a family before the success of their business divided them, instead of bringing them together.

“We could hardly afford to buy medicines when our children became sick, or ensure their milk supply. I often stayed up all night so no mosquitos would bite them. Yet today, after more than five decades of tirelessly working for the success of the business, I got into this stage of seeing some of my children going against me and leaving me with nothing after all my hard work alongside their father,” she said.

“Precisely, I worked so hard so they did not have to endure what we have endured and that I would not beg money from them. It feels so sad that they have forsaken the hand that fed them,” Olivia said.

“Now that our business has flourished, it is very painful on my part as a parent, painful to a mother like me that I have to go through all these. I have sacrificed so much and done things beyond the capabilities of a nurse, performing functions outside my core skills like being assigned to manage the warehouse, handle finances as well as ticketing,” she said as the family feud took place on July 7 when four of her child wrested control of the company.