The client did not receive ALL remunerations mandated by law as stipulated by the

Respondent Agency on its Position Paper.

The said hand written resignation letter was executed by the complainant as a
precedent for her to be entitled of all the benefits guaranteed by the law such as her
Retirement Benefits. The forced resignation letter was instructed by the Admin in the
person of Galahad P. Lagahit for her to be issued a Certificate of Employment instead
of letting the complainant to write a retirement letter. Such act is indeed a manifestation
that the Respondent Agency took advantage of the situation to get away with their
responsibility in providing for the retirement benefits of the complainant and other
statutory rights and benefits indicated in the law.

The Resignation Letter and Voluntary Quitclaim argument of the Respondent Agency is
of no moment. The fact that the Respondent Agency was the one who dictated the
complainant to execute such Resignation Letter and Quit Claim debunks the argument
of the Respondent Agency that such Quit Claim and Resignation letter is voluntary and
upon the complainant’s free will. She was deceived on the false pretenses by making
the complainannt believe that she will not be getting all her benefits without the said
documents.

The requisites for a valid quitclaim are: 1) that there was no fraud or deceit on the part
of any of the parties; 2) that the consideration for the quitclaim is credible and
reasonable; and 3) that the contract is not contrary to law, public order, public policy,
morals or good customs or prejudicial to a third person with a right recognized by law.
(See Francisco Soriano, Jr. vs. NLRC et al., G.R. No. 165594 April 23, 2007).

Thus the fact that the complainant was deceived, the consideration for the said
quitclaim was unreasonable and that such contract is against law and public policy,
such quitclaim cannot is not valid. In other words, employees, must not have been
deceived in signing, or taken advantage of their vulnerability and ignorance of the law.

Generally, the law looks with disfavor on quitclaims and releases by employees
who have been inveigled or pressured into signing them by unscrupulous employers
seeking to evade their legal responsibilities and frustrate just claims of
employees.[32] They are frowned upon as contrary to public policy. A quitclaim is
ineffective in barring recovery of the full measure of a worker's rights, and the
acceptance of benefits therefrom does not amount to estoppel.[33]
 The reason is laid down in Lopez Sugar Corporation v. Federation of Free
Workers:[34]

The reason is plain. Employer and employee, obviously, do not stand on

the same footing. The employer drove the employee to the wall. The latter
must have to get hold of money. Because, out of the job, he had to face
harsh necessities of life. He thus found himself in no position to resist
money proferred. His, then, is a case of adherence, not of choice. One
thing sure, however, is that petitioners did not relent their claim. They
pressed it. They are deemed not to have waived any of their
rights. Renuntiatio non praesumitur.

Moreover, the Respondent Agency, not the Petitioner, have the burden of proving that
the quitclaim was voluntarily entered into.[36] In previous cases, we have considered,
among others, the educational attainment of the
employees concerned in upholding the validity of the quitclaims which
they have executed in favor of their employers.[37] However, in Becton Dickinson Phils.,
Inc. v. National Labor Relations Commission,[38] we held:

There is no nexus between intelligence, or even the position which the

employee held in the company when it concerns the pressure which the
employer may exert upon the free will of the employee who is asked to
sign a release and quitclaim. A lowly employee or a sales manager, as in
the present case, who is confronted with the same dilemma of whether
signing a release and quitclaim and accept what the company offers them,
or refusing to sign and walk out without receiving anything, may do
succumb to the same pressure, being very well aware that it is going to
take quite a while before he can recover whatever he is entitled to,
because it is only after a protracted legal battle starting from the labor
arbiter level, all the way to this Court, can he receive anything at all. The
Court understands that such a risk of not receiving anything whatsoever,
coupled with the probability of not immediately getting any gainful
employment or means of livelihood in the meantime, constitutes enough
pressure upon anyone who is asked to sign a release and quitclaim in
exchange of some amount of money which may be way below what he
may be entitled to based on company practice and policy or by law.

It is worth mentioning that the Petitioner is a rank-and-file employee. She is a simple

folk who rely on her work for the daily sustenance for her respective family. Absent any
convincing proof of voluntariness in the submission of the documentary requirements
and in the execution of the quitclaim, we cannot simply assume that respondents were
not subjected to the very same pressure mentioned in Becton. Furthermore, the fact
that Petitioner filed a complaint for illegal dismissal against Respondent Agency
completely negates their claim that Petitioners voluntarily resigned. To note, Petitioners
vigorously pursued this case against Respondent Agency for the past nine (9) months.
Without doubt, this is a manifestation wholly incompatible to Respondent Agency’s
assertion that Petitioner voluntarily resigned. (UNIVERSAL ROBINA SUGAR MILLING
CORPORATION (URSUMCO) and/orRENATO CABATI, as Manager, VS. AGRIPINO
CABALLEDA and ALEJANDRO CADALIN, G.R. No. 156644, July 28, 2008)
Forced resignation
In illegal dismissal cases, the employer who interposes the defense of resignation has the burden to prove that
the employee indeed voluntarily resigned. This is the principle applied in this case of Lynn.
Lynn was a licensed civil engineer for ten years already when she was hired by a construction and
development company (SMPI) as construction management specialist in 1991. Because of satisfactory
performance on the job, she was promoted as technical services manager in 1994 and then as project
development manager in 1995. As project development manager she also sat as a member of the company’s
management committee (MC).
But on January 27, 1998, the Company CEO informed Lynn that the company was planning to reorganize its
manpower in order to cut on costs and that she had to file for resignation otherwise face termination. Initially
Lynn refused to sign the blank resignation form handed to her by the company’s human resources department.
Since then she had been excluded from the MC meetings and treated sourly that caused her humiliation and
alienation. Considering the alternative of being terminated from the service or resigning with an attractive
financial package offered her by the company, she opted for resignation instead of suffer termination. So on
February 18, 1998, she submitted the signed resignation letter.
Lynn however learned that there was no reorganization plan in place when she resigned or immediately
thereafter but only the hiring of new employees and some promotions of high ranking personnel. So on June
26, 1998, Lynn filed a complaint for illegal dismissal alleging that her separation from the service was
practically forced upon her by management who tricked her into signing the resignation letter due to an
impending reorganization when there was none after all. She thus alleged that she had been dismissed without
cause and prayed for reinstatement and damages.
But on March 26, 1999, the Labor Arbiter (LA) dismissed Lynn’s complaint for lack of merit. The LA found
no proven force, coercion, intimidation or any other circumstance which could otherwise invalidate Lynn’s
resignation. Being a well-educated person, Lynn could not just be inveigled into resigning against her will. He
said that being excluded from the management committee meetings would not be so humiliating and alienating
as to compel her to resign and that the company indeed made some promotions and new appointments which
were measures implementing the reorganization. Was the LA correct?
No. Resignation is the formal pronouncement and voluntary act of relinquishment of a position or office. The
intent to relinquish must concur with the overt act of relinquishment. Hence the act of the employee before and
after the resignation must be considered in determining whether he/she in fact intended to terminate his/her
employment. In illegal dismissal cases, the employer who asserts that there is voluntary resignation and not
dismissal has the burden of proving that the employee indeed voluntarily resigned. SMPI was unable to
discharge this burden.
In this case the question of whether or not there was such a reorganization plan in place at the time of Lynn’s
separation is material to the determination of whether her resignation was voluntary as claimed by SMPI
because she could not have filed her resignation had she not been informed that there was such reorganization.
And, it is quite clear that there was actually no genuine corporate restructuring plan in place yet at the time the
CEO presented to Lynn the seemingly last available alternative options of voluntary resignation and
termination by abolition of office. Certainly, inasmuch as the necessity of corporate reorganization generally
lies within the exclusive prerogative of management, Lynn at that point had no facility to ascertain the truth
behind it, and neither was she in a position to question it right then and there. Indeed she could not have
chosen to file for resignation had SMI not broached to her the possibility of her being terminated from the
service on account of the supposed reorganization. So it is understandable for Lynn to opt for resignation
considering the attractive financial package which SMPI offered to her, instead of suffer termination that
management made her believe will happen.
Thus Lynn’s separation from the company was the confluence of fraudulent representation to her that her
office would be declared redundant coupled with the subsequent alienation which she suffered from the
company by reason of her initial refusal to tender her resignation. The element of voluntariness in her
resignation is therefore missing. She has been constructively, and hence illegally dismissed as indeed her
continued employment is rendered impossible, unreasonable or unlikely under the circumstances.
But considering that it has been more than a decade since she involuntarily resigned, and with the changes in
the corporate structure of SMPI, Lynn’s former position or its equivalent may no longer be existing or is
currently occupied. Furthermore there is a possibility that Lynn’s rejoining SMPI’s workforce would only
create tension and strained relations and would thus compromise her efficiency and productivity especially
because she was holding a key position founded on trust and confidence. Hence in lieu of reinstatement, she
should be given separation pay equivalent to one month salary for every year of service plus full backwages
and P50,000 moral damages, P25,000 exemplary damages and 10% of the total amount due as Attorney’s fees
(San Miguel Properties Inc. vs. Gucaban, G.R. 153982, July 18, 2011). –Jose C. Sison (The Philippine Star)