4/29/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly ordered Poseidon and Van Doorn to pay the respondents the amounts tabulated below, representing the difference between the amounts they were entitled to receive under the May 25, 2005 agreement and the amounts that they received as settlement pay: Artemio A. Bo-oc US$3,705.00 Joel S. Fernandez US$4,633.57 Felipe S. Saurin, Jr. US$4,008.62 Tito R. Tamala US$4,454.20 In setting aside the NLRC’s ruling, the CA considered the waivers and quitclaims invalid and highly suspicious. The CA noted that the respondents in fact questioned in their pleadings the letter’s due execution. In contrast with the NLRC, the CA observed that the respondents were coerced and unduly influenced into accepting the 50% settlement pay and into signing the waivers and quitclaims because of their financial distress. The CA moreover considered the amounts stated in the May 25, 2005 agreement with Goran to be more reasonable and in keeping with Section 10 of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995. The CA also pointed out with emphasis that the pre-termination of the respondents’ employment contract was simply the result of Van Doorn’s decision to stop its operations. Finally, the CA did not consider the respondents’ complaint as a mere afterthought; the respondents are precisely given under the Labor Code a three-year prescriptive period to allow them to institute such actions. Poseidon filed the present petition after the CA denied its motion for reconsideration[22] in the CA’s February 11, 2009 Resolution.[23] The Petition Poseidon’s petition argues that the labor tribunals’ findings are not only binding but are fully supported by evidence. Poseidon contends that the CA’s application of Section 10 of R.A. No. 8042 to justify the amounts it awarded to the respondents is misplaced, as the respondents never raised the issue of illegal dismissal before the NLRC and the CA. It claims that the respondents, in assailing the NLRC ruling before the CA, mainly questioned the validity of the waivers and quitclaims they signed and their binding effect on them. While the respondents raised the issue of illegal dismissal before the LA, they eventually abandoned it in their pleadings — a matter the LA even pointed out in her May 2006 Decision. Poseidon further argues that the NLRC did not exceed its jurisdiction nor gravely abuse its discretion in deciding the case in its favor, pointing out that the respondents raised issues pertaining to mere errors of judgment before the CA. Thus, as matters stood, these issues did not call for the grant of a writ of certiorari as this prerogative writ is limited to the correction of errors of jurisdiction committed through grave abuse of elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55926 4/14