MICHAELMAR PHILS., INC., SEA JUSTICE SA AND/OR MA. MERCEDES M. ºRAVANOPOULOS, PETITIONERS, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION (SIXTH DIVISION) AND ADRIAN L. EDAY, RESPONDENTS.
DIAMANTE, J.:
The antecedent facts of the case are as follows:
In his October 17, 2013 Position Paper,[4] private respondent Adrian Lumawag Eday asseverated his entitlement for total and permanent disability benefits to be imposed against herein petitioners, an excerpt of the same is hereby reproduced, viz:
“xxx xxx
Complainant [herein private respondent] signed a contract of employment with respondents [herein petitioners] on 24 October [2012][5] to work as “ABLE SEAMAN” on board the vessel “M/V INDIA.” The said employment contract provides, among others, the following relevant terms and conditions, to wit:
xxx xxx
Before he joined the vessel, complainant underwent the required Pre-Embarkation Medical Examination (PEME) and was declared fit for sea duty by respondents’ company-designated clinic. Upon joining the vessel, he thereafter more than fully and ably discharged his duties and responsibilities expected of him until he was repatriated on 26 January 2013 for medical reason.
On 08 January 2013, while the vessel M/V INDIA was en route to Santos, Brazil, complainant was tasked to clean DBT 3 port side rose plate cover. The steel plate was in perpendicular position as complainant was in progress [of] cleaning it. Unfortunately, the steel plate accidentally slipped from its position which complainant tried to prevent from falling but was too heavy to hold it that it crushed his left hand. He was immediately rescued by his colleagues and was given first aid treatment.
After five (5) days, the vessel reached the coast of Cape Town and a rescue helicopter brought complainant to the nearest hospital for medical treatment. After medical examination, he was found to have suffered multiple fractures in his hand due to the accident. Complainant underwent surgery of his left hand where the fracture was fixed with plating and screws. After the surgery, complainant stayed in the hospital for twelve (12) more days. Due to his injury, the attending surgeon advised him it would take a year before the plating can be removed but he could no longer use his injured hand for heavy activity. He was then declared unfit for sea duty and was repatriated to the Philippines on 26 January 2013.
On 28 January 2013, immediately after his arrival, complainant was referred to respondents’ company-designated physician at YGEIA Medical Center, Inc. Follow up medical check ups were scheduled on 04 February 2013 and 11 February 2013. Upon examination, complainant was advised to undergo physical therapy for ten (10) to fourteen (14) sessions.
Unfortunately, even after the surgery, complainant could not move his hand without experiencing pain. He noticed to have lost his grip. He then inquired from the company-designated physician whether the loss of his grip is temporary. He further inquired whether he could still use his injured hand for work as seafarer since the surgeon in Cape Town informed him otherwise. Despite his questions, the company-designated physician refused his query and told him to just wait for instructions from respondents.
As his family was also curious as to his future, complainant was referred by his family to seek [consultation] and evaluation from an independent medical report, Dr. Manuel Fidel M. Magtira, M.D., who after a series of evaluation and tests, declared complainant permanently unfit for sea duties, xxx xxx.
After 3 check ups, complainant requested from respondents reimbursements of his medical expenses as he was suffering from financial difficulty. He also sought assistance for his physical therapy. Despite complainant’s request, respondents refused to reimburse his medical expenses and denied complainant of assistance for continued therapy. Complainant then asked respondents for his sickness allowance but respondents refused. After several and persistent demands, respondents deliberately ignored complainant’s plea. Thus, complainant was forced to file his complaint for nonpayment of sickness allowance. Mandatory conciliation hearings were made and respondents were forced to settle his sickness allowance claim.
However, irked by complainant’s filing of a labor complaint to demand payment of his sickness allowance, respondents prematurely terminated the medical treatment and therapy they provide him, even despite his protestation as his injuries were still unresolved, to no avail. Again, complainant requested respondents to continue their medical accommodation of his injury but they continuously refused. Meanwhile, complainant went back to his own medical expert for further evaluation of his medical condition on his left hand but he was given the same evaluation of total permanent disability.
Thus, complainant was forced to amend his complaint to include total permanent disability benefit and attorney’s fees.”
For their part, petitioners countered that private respondent is not entitled to total permanent disability benefits considering that both the attending physicians abroad and the medical center where private respondent was referred to upon repatriation had issued similar findings enunciating therein that the latter would still recover from his injury with continuous treatment and physical therapy. Petitioners further asseverated that private respondent’s condition was assessed as disability Grade-10 in the medical report and such assessment was made on the 116th day counted from the time of repatriation, which was well-within the 240-day period prescribed by law for any declaration of either fitness to work of the seafarer or his permanent disability.
On January 6, 2014, the Labor Arbiter rendered a judgment sustaining the claim for total permanent disability benefits. Upon appeal, the NLRC rendered a Decision affirming the ruling of the Labor Arbiter. Thereafter, the NLRC likewise denied petitioners’ motion for reconsideration. In view of the foregoing, herein petitioners come before this Court via a special action of certiorari assailing the decision of public respondent NLRC.
The petition is unmeritorious.
Now, this Court shall determine whether private respondent is entitled to be awarded permanent total disability benefits. We hold in the affirmative.
In the case at bench, We find that public respondent NLRC did not err in sustaining the award of total permanent disability benefits. Petitioners’ contention that private respondent was not entitled to permanent total disability benefits inasmuch as his condition was only assessed as disability Grade-10 and such assessment was made on the 116th day counted from the time of repatriation, which was well-within the 240-day period prescribed by law, does not hold water. As expressly stated in the medical report issued by YGEIA Medical Center, Inc., the assessment is merely interim.[6] It was further declared therein that private respondent would need to undergo further treatment of four(4)-six(6) months of physical therapy sessions. Furthermore, there was no specific stipulation in the aforesaid medical report that private respondent is fit for sea duties.
In Quitoriano vs. Jebsens Maritime, Inc., et al.,[7] the Supreme Court has emphatically espoused that disability should be understood less on its medical significance but more on the loss of earning capacity, and We quote, thus:
In accordance with the avowed policy of the State to give maximum aid and full protection to labor, the Court has applied the Labor Code concept of permanent total disability to Filipino seafarers, it holding that the notion of disability is intimately related to the worker’s capacity to earn, what is compensated being not his injury or illness but his inability to work resulting in the impairment of his earning capacity; hence, disability should be understood less on its medical significance but more on the loss of earning capacity.
The standard employment contract for seafarers was formulated by the POEA pursuant to its mandate under E.O. No. 247 to “secure the best terms and conditions of employment of Filipino contract workers and ensure compliance therewith” and to “promote and protect the well-being of Filipino workers overseas.” Even without this provision, a contract of labor is so impressed with public interest that the New Civil Code expressly subjects it to “the special laws on labor unions, collective bargaining, strikes and lockouts, closed shop, wages, working conditions, hours of labor and similar subjects” (Art. 1700).
Thus, the Court has applied the Labor Code concept of permanent total disability to the case of seafarers. x x x.
x x x x
There are three kinds of disability benefits under the Labor Code, as amended by P.D. No. 626: (1) temporary total disability, (2) permanent total disability, and (3) permanent partial disability. Section 2, Rule VII of the Implementing Rules of Book V of the Labor Code differentiates the disabilities as follows:
Sec. 2. Disability.– (a) A total disability is temporary if as a result of the injury or sickness the employee is unable to perform any gainful occupation for a continuous period not exceeding 120 days, except as otherwise provided for in Rule X of these Rules.
(b) A disability is total and permanent if as a result of the injury or sickness the employee is unable to perform any gainful occupation for a continuous period exceeding 120 days, except as otherwise provided for in Rule X of these Rules.
(c) A disability is partial and permanent if as a result of the injury or sickness the employee suffers a permanent partial loss of the use of any part of his body.
In Vicente v. ECC (G.R. No. 85024, January 23, 1991, 193 SCRA 190, 195):
x x x the test of whether or not an employee suffers from permanent total disability’ is a showing of the capacity of the employee to continue performing his work notwithstanding the disability he incurred. Thus, if by reason of the injury or sickness he sustained, the employee is unable to perform his customary job for more than 120 days and he does not come within the coverage of Rule X of the Amended Rules on Employees Compensability (which, in more detailed manner, describes what constitutes temporary total disability), then the said employee undoubtedly suffers from ‘permanent total disability’ regardless of whether or not he loses the use of any part of his body.
A total disability does not require that the employee be absolutely disabled or totally paralyzed. What is necessary is that the injury must be such that the employee cannot pursue his usual work and earn therefrom (Austria v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 146636, Aug. 12, 2002, 387 SCRA 216, 221). On the other hand, a total disability is considered permanent if it lasts continuously for more than 120 days. xxx xxx
At this juncture, We deem it wise to reiterate the observation of the Labor Arbiter with respect to the condition of private respondent, as such:
xxx xxx
Respondents [herein petitioners] depended on the disability grading given, Grade 10: loss of grasping power for large objects between fingers and palm of one hand. They omitted however to state that grade 10 was given as an “Interim disability assessment based on seafarer’s present medical condition. Interim disability assessment, meaning not final assessment as it follows that further treatment is necessary for about 4 to 6 months of physical therapy.
Respondents rely in the statement of Dr. Ma. Lourdes Quetulio in her medical report, saying, “Yes, patient can still recover from his injury barring unforeseen complications.” This is without considering that stated in letter (b) same letter which says: Estimated length of further treatment: 4-6 moths of physical therapy.” The letter is dated May 21, 2013, meaning 4 to 6 months from that day on or that 11 months from date of accident.
xxx xxx
From day one (1) of the accident up to May 21, 2013, complainant has not yet recovered from his hand injury. He was given the hope that he could still recover but the estimated length of further treatment is another 4 – 6 months physical therapy from May 21, [2013]. Absent from the medical report by company-designated physician is that declaration that complainant will be fit for sea duty again. This being the case, complainant is entitled to receive a total disability benefit of US$60,000.00 under POEA Standard Employment Contract and not the grade 10 as recommended.[8]
At any rate, even in the absence of an official finding by the company-designated physician or private respondent’s own physician, he is deemed to have suffered permanent total disability pursuant to the following guidelines in Fil-Star Maritime Corporation vs. Rosete,[9] thus:
Permanent disability is inability of a worker to perform his job for more than 120 days, regardless of whether or not he loses the use of any part of his body.
Total disability, on the other hand, means the disablement of an employee to earn wages in the same kind of work of similar nature that he was trained for, or accustomed to perform, or any kind of work which a person of his mentality and attainments could do.
A total disability does not require that the employee be completely disabled, or totally paralyzed. What is necessary is that the injury must be such that the employee cannot pursue his or her usual work and earn from it. A total disability is considered permanent if it lasts continuously for more than 120 days.
Finally, it bears stressing that the factual findings of the Labor Arbiter were, upon review, affirmed in toto by the NLRC. In Becton Dickinson Phils., Inc., et al. vs. NLRC, et al.,[10] the Supreme Court, citing several jurisprudential pronouncements, has held that factual findings of labor officials who are deemed to have acquired expertise in matters within their respective jurisdictions are generally accorded not only respect, but even finality. Verily, their conclusions are accorded great weight upon appeal, especially when supported by substantial evidence, as such in this case. It goes without saying that We find no compelling reason to depart from this principle. All told, the Court finds no reversible error with the assailed decision and resolution of the public respondent NLRC.
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the instant petition is DENIED. Accordingly, the April 21, 2014 Decision and the May 30, 2014 Resolution of the National Labor Relations Commission, Sixth Division in LAC No. OFW-M-01-000123-14 [NCR-OFW-M-05-07546-13] are hereby AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.
*Garcia, (Acting Chairperson), and Sadang, JJ., concur.
º Spelled as Ravanapoulos in the assailed NLRC Decision and Resolution.
* Vice J. Celia C. Librea-Leagogo as per Raffle dated October 31, 2014.
[1] Rollo, pp. 49-56.
[2] Id. at 58-60.
[3] Id. at 169-177.
[4] Id. at 112-127.
[5] Id. at 85, as indicated in the Contract of Employment.
[6] Id. at 93.
[7] G.R. No. 179868, January 21, 2010.
[8] Rollo, pp. 175-176.
[9] G.R. No. 192686, November 23, 2011, 661 SCRA 247 as cited in Maersk Filipinas Crewing, Inc./Maersk Services, Ltd., et al. vs. Mesina, G.R. No. 200837, June 5, 2013.
[10] G.R. Nos. 159969 & 160116, November 15, 2005.