4/10/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly release) between the respondents and the agency before the POEA, the respondents argue that the agreements pertain only to their charge of recruitment violations against the agency. They add that based on the agreements, read and considered entirely, the agency was discharged only with respect to the recruitment and pre-deployment issues such as excessive placement fees, non-issuance of receipts and placement misrepresentation, but not with respect to post-deployment issues such as illegal dismissal, breach of contract, underpayment of salaries and underpayment and nonpayment of overtime pay. The respondents stress that the agency failed to controvert their contention that the agreements came about only to settle their claim for refund of their airfare which they paid for when they were repatriated. Lastly, the respondents maintain that since they were illegally dismissed, the CA was correct in upholding the NLRC’s award of their salaries for the unexpired portion of their employment contracts, as enunciated in Serrano. They point out that the Serrano ruling is curative and remedial in nature and, as such, should be given retroactive application as the Court declared in Yap v. Thenamaris Ship’s Management.[26] Further, the respondents take exception to the agency’s contention that the Serrano ruling cannot, in any event, be applied in the present case in view of the enactment of R.A. 10022 on March 8, 2010, amending Section 10 of R.A. 8042. The amendment restored the subject clause in paragraph 5, Section 10 of R.A. 8042 which was struck down as unconstitutional in Serrano. The respondents maintain that the agency cannot raise the issue for the first time before this Court when it could have raised it before the CA with its petition for certiorari which it filed on June 8, 2010;[27] otherwise, their right to due process will be violated. The agency, on the other hand, would later claim that it is not barred by estoppel with respect to its reliance on R.A. 10022 as it raised it before the CA in CAG.R. SP No. 114353.28 They further argue that RA 10022 cannot be applied in their case, as the law is an amendatory statute which is, as a rule, prospective in application, unless the contrary is provided.[29] To put the issue to rest, the respondents ask the Court to also declare unconstitutional Section 7 of R.A. 10022. Finally, the respondents submit that the petition should be dismissed outright for raising only questions of fact, rather than of law. The Court’s Ruling The procedural question We deem it proper to examine the facts of the case on account of the divergence in the factual conclusions of the labor arbiter on the one hand, and, of the NLRC and the CA, on the other.[30] The arbiter found no illegal dismissal in the respondents’ loss of employment in Dubai because they voluntarily resigned; whereas, the NLRC and the CA adjudged them to have been illegally dismissed because they were virtually forced to resign. The merits of the case elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55155 7/15