4/10/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly 3. affirming the NLRC’s award to the respondents of their salaries for the unexpired portion of their employment contracts, pursuant to the Serrano ruling. The agency insists that it is not liable for illegal dismissal, actual or constructive. It submits that as correctly found by the labor arbiter, the respondents voluntarily resigned from their jobs, and even executed affidavits of quitclaim and release; the respondents stated family concerns for their resignation. The agency posits that the letters were duly proven as they were written unconditionally by the respondents. It, therefore, assails the conclusion that the respondents resigned under duress or that the resignation letters were dubious. The agency raises the same argument with respect to the compromise agreements, with quitclaim and release, it entered into with Vinuya, Era, Ladea, Enjambre, Ordovez, Alcantara, Anipan and Lumanta before the POEA, although it submitted evidence only for six of them. Anipan, Lumanta, Vinuya and Ladea signing one document;[19] Era[20] and Alcantara[21] signing a document each. It points out that the agreement was prepared with the assistance of POEA Conciliator Judy Santillan, and was duly and freely signed by the respondents; moreover, the agreement is not conditional as it pertains to all issues involved in the dispute between the parties. On the third issue, the agency posits that the Serrano ruling has no application in the present case for three reasons. First, the respondents were not illegally dismissed and, therefore, were not entitled to their money claims. Second, the respondents filed the complaint in 2007, while the Serrano ruling came out on March 24, 2009. The ruling cannot be given retroactive application. Third, R.A. 10022, which was enacted on March 8, 2010 and which amended R.A. 8042, restored the subject clause in Section 10 of R.A. 8042, declared unconstitutional by the Court. The Respondents’ Position In their Comment (to the Petition) dated September 28, 2011,[22] the respondents ask the Court to deny the petition for lack of merit. They dispute the agency’s insistence that they resigned voluntarily. They stand firm on their submission that because of their unbearable living and working conditions in Dubai, they were left with no choice but to resign. Also, the agency never refuted their detailed narration of the reasons for giving up their employment. The respondents maintain that the quitclaim and release affidavits,[23] which the agency presented, betray its desperate attempt to escape its liability to them. They point out that, as found by the NLRC, the affidavits are ready-made documents; for instance, in Lumanta’s[24] and Era’s[25] affidavits, they mentioned a certain International Manpower as the agency which recruited them — a fact inapplicable to all the respondents. They contend that they had no choice but the documents; otherwise, their release papers and remaining salaries would given to them, a submission which the agency never refuted. G & A totally to sign not be On the agency’s second line of defense, the compromise agreement (with quitclaim and elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55155 6/15