6/7/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly considering the economic disadvantage of the employee and the inevitable pressure upon him by financial necessity. (Citation omitted) Respondents could have simply paid the judgment award without attaching conditions that have far-reaching consequences other than those intended by a simple compliance with what was required under the circumstances - that is, the mandatory execution proceedings following a favorable judgment allowed under the Labor Code. But they did not; they had to find a way to tie petitioner's hands permanently, dangling the check as bait, so to speak. To borrow from a fairly recent ruling of the Court, "[t]he execution [of the documents] cannot be tolerated as it amounts to a deceptive scheme to unconditionally absolve employers from every liability.[32] x x x. As a rule, quitclaims and waivers or releases are looked upon with disfavor and frowned upon as contrary to public policy. They are thus ineffective to bar claims for the full measure of a worker's legal rights, particularly when the following conditions are applicable: 1) where there is clear proof that the waiver was wangled from an unsuspecting or gullible person, or (2) where the terms of settlement are unconscionable on their face. To determine whether the Quitclaims signed by respondents are valid, one important factor that must be taken into account is the consideration accepted by respondents; the amount must constitute a reasonable settlement equivalent to the full measure of their legal rights. In this case, the Quitclaims signed by the respondents do not appear to have been made for valuable consideration. x x x [33] (Emphasis supplied) For what they did, respondents are guilty of bad faith, and should suffer the consequences of their actions. One is that their payment of petitioner's claim should properly be treated as a voluntary settlement of his claim in full satisfaction of the NLRC judgment - which thus rendered the Petition in CA-G.R. SP No. 124685 moot and academic. For its part, the CA refused to apply the pronouncement in Career Phils. Shipmanagement, insinuating that the situation of the parties in said case and in the present one are different in that, in the instant case, petitioner "still retains the right to judicial recourse in the event"[34] that the NLRC decision is reversed, while in Career Phils. Shipmanagement, "the Supreme Court opted to render the action therein moot and academic due to the fact that part of the condition is a prohibition on the part of the seafarer to pursue further claims"[35] as stated in the same Conditional Satisfaction of Judgment, Receipt of Payment and Affidavit which he was made to sign. The appellate court's position is flawed: petitioner's situation is no different from that of the seafarer in the Career Phils. Shipmanagement case. The CA's reasoning laid down in its pronouncement is a mere convenient play on words. Just as in the Career Phils. Shipmanagement case, petitioner is equally prohibited from pursuing further claims; it is not simply that petitioner "still retains the right to judicial recourse"; what is of significance is that he stands to gain nothing in the end, and yet is unduly prevented from pursuing further claims - all without the benefit of receiving, in return, valuable consideration or a reasonable settlement equivalent to the full measure of his legal rights. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/62635 11/14