When I first read this article I thought wow that is really cool, a lot of these amateur refs let it go too far its nice to see some compassion. Then I watched the fight and had a huge emotional shift and just felt horrible for his opponent. On the technical side Pantangco was certainly more skilled but he wasn't doing that much damage. More flash than fire power on his shots and other dude took it all and kept coming forward. I was expecting a situation where the fight should have been stopped and this guy took compassion for his opponent and just ended it. Instead I saw a guy so arrogant and disrespectful to his opponent that he just quit because he assumed he was going to win anyways. What an asshole, his opponent was in the middle of living his dream and he stole that from him. People don't get in the cage expecting to not get hurt and they wear their wounds with pride. Even an amateur trains hard mentally and physically to get in the cage and after all that hard work to have some one basically say "fuck you, you aren't even good enough to be worth my time" has to be crushing. I would way rather get my ass kicked.
As many others said, if you are so good then finish him gently. Throw on the choke, pepper the body, grind out top position. Even playing the bongos on his back would be less humiliating than what he did. It's not about getting paid it's about pride, it's about respect, it's about pushing yourself beyond your known limits, it's your right of passage and about accomplishing a dream. He did no one any favors by taking that from his opponent.