NAESS SHIPPING PHILIPPINES, INC., PETITIONER, VS. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION AND ZENAIDA R. DUBLIN, RESPONDENTS.

The decisive issue
in this special civil action of certiorari is whether
or not the POEA and the NLRC acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to
lack or excess of jurisdiction in adjudging that under a contract of employment
of a crewman of an ocean-going vessel providing
— as “compensation for (the crewman’s) loss of life” — for the
payment of “CASH BENEFITS” to his “immediate next of kin,”
said crew-man’s death by suicide is compensable.

On the night of September
3, 1983, while the vessel MV DYVI PACIFIC was plying the seas enroute from Santos, Brazil
to Port Said, Egypt,
Pablo Dublin, the vessel’s chief steward, fatally stabbed the second cook,
Rodolfo Fernandez, during a quarrel, then ran to the deck from which he jumped
or fell overboard.  An alarm was
immediately raised, and the vessel turned to comb the surrounding area for Dublin.  After some time his floating body was briefly sighted, but it disappeared from
view even as preparations to retrieve it were being made, and was never seen
again although the search went on through the night and was called off only at 6:00 o’clock the next morning.^[1]

There is no dispute that Dublin had been hired by NAESS Shipping,
Philippines, Inc. (hereinafter called NAESS) to serve aboard the MV DYVI
PACIFIC under an employment contract which incorporated as part thereof the
Special Agreement between the International Workers Federation (ITF) and NAESS
Shipping (Holland) B.V. of Amsterdam, the mother company of NAESS
(Philippines).  Said Agreement bound
NAESS to pay cash benefits for loss of life of workers enrolled therein,
pursuant to the following provisions:

“Article 8

“For the purpose of this Special Agreement the Collective
Bargaining Agreement between the ITF-Affiliated Associated Marine Officers’ and
Seamen’s Union of the Philippines
(AMOSUP-PTGWO) and Naess Shipping Philippines, Inc.,
dated April 16, 1983 in
respect of all Philippine seafarers has been approved by the ITF.

***.

Paragraph 17 – CASH
BENEFITS

Compensation for Loss of Life:

i) to immediate next  of kin- US$24,844.00

ii) to each dependent child under the age of 18 – US$7,118.00″^[2]

For the death of Dublin,
his widow Zenaida, by whom he had one child, Ivy,
born January 22, 1971,
collected the amount of P75,000.00 under Clause A of the ITF Collective
Bargaining Agreement.^[3]
She also filed with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) a
complaint against NAESS^[4] for payment of death benefits totalling US$74,512.00 under both paragraph 17 of the cited
Special Agreement and what she claimed to be the also applicable Singapore Workmens‘ Compensation 
Ordinance.^[5]

After answer was filed by NAESS denying liability on the ground
that Pablo Dublin had taken his own life and that suicide was not compensable
under the Agreement invoked, the parties agreed to submit the case for decision
on the basis of position papers.^[6]
Thereafter, the POEA rendered judgment for the complainant, holding Dublin’s
death compensable under said Special Agreement and ordering NAESS to pay
complainant and her child compensation benefits totalling
US$31,962.00 and her attorneys of record fees amounting to US$3,196.00, or the
equivalents of said sums in Philippine pesos at prevailing rates of exchange.^[7]

NAESS filed a motion for reconsideration.  Said motion was referred to the National
Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) and was treated by the latter as an appeal
which it dismissed for lack of merit, with an express affirmance
of the POEA decision.^[8]
NAESS thereupon came to this Court on a petition for certiorari,
charging grave abuse of discretion and/or lack or excess of jurisdiction in
both the rendition and the affirmance of judgment of
the POEA and raising the sole
issue of “*** whether death caused by suicide (jumping overboard) is
compensable.”^[9]

NAESS argues the thesis that suicide is not compensable under
the employment contract of Pablo Dublin because said agreement did not
constitute it the insurer of Dublin’s life; that to allow the payment of death
benefits in the particular circumstances of this case would amount to paying a
price or reward for murder; and that the NLRC incurred in serious error in
finding that there was no conclusive proof that  Dublin had intentionally
killed himself.

At first blush these arguments would seem to possess some
merit.  They fail, however, to stand
closer scrutiny.  There is no question
that NAESS freely bound itself to a contract which on its face makes it
unqualifiedly liable to pay compensation benefits for Dublin’s
death while in its service, regardless of whether or not it intended to make
itself the insurer, in the legal sense, of Dublin’s
life.  No law or rule has been cited
which would make it illegal for an employer to assume such obligation in favor
of his or its employee in their contract of employment.

The attention of the Court has been invited to the fact that the
agreement in question also provides for payment of disability benefits,^[10]
but that in contrast to compensation
for death the right to such benefits is conditioned on lack of fault on the
part of the employee concerned for the accident causing disability, thus
evincing an intent to treat the two classes of benefits differently.  This, it is likewise suggested, militates
against reading into the provision for death benefits conditionalities
not explicitly stated therein; and, indeed, it does, because it is only logical
to assume that if it had been intended to subject NAESS’ liability for death
benefits to any condition, such as one barring compensation for death by the
employee’s own hand, whether intentional or otherwise, the contract would have
specifically so provided, just as it did in incorporating the lack-of-fault proviso in the disability benefits clause referred to.

“***.  Thus, contracts, *** which are the
private laws of the contracting parties, should be fulfilled according to the
literal sense of their stipulations, if their terms are clear and leave no room
for doubt as to the intention of the contracting parties, for contracts are obligatory, no matter what
their form may be, whenever the essential requisites for their validity are
present. ***”^[11]

“To start with,
a few basic principles on the interpretation of contracts should be reiterated. 
When there is no doubt as to the intention of the contracting parties,
its literal meaning shall control.  Article 1372 of the New Civil Code further
provides that however general the terms of a contract may be, they shall not be
understood to comprehend things that are distinct and cases that are different
from those upon which the parties intended to agree.  Therefore, a meaning other than that
expressed or an interpretation which would alter its strict and literal
significance should not be given to it. 
Moreover, the entirety of the contract
must be taken into consideration to ascertain the meaning of its provisions.^[12]

In view of what has
already been stated, it makes no difference
whether Dublin intentionally took his own life, or he killed himself in a moment of temporary aberration triggered by remorse over the killing of the
second cook, or he accidentally fell overboard while trying to flee from imagined pursuit, which last possibility cannot be ruled out considering the state of the evidence.  It
may be noted parenthetically that
these conjectures sound equally plausible because the events surrounding the death
of Dublin have not been established
with any degree of certitude.  As
already observed, this case was submitted
to the POEA for decision on the basis of position papers only. 
Testimony as to the circumstances of the two deaths on board the MV DYVI PACIFIC, though presumably available,
was never presented.  To be sure, NAESS
in its position paper adverted to certain declarations of crewmen on the matter
supposedly “*** culled from the Official Report of the Master of the
vessel ***” but the POEA was furnished only a xerox
copy of that document.^[13]
Proof of this kind, if it may be called such, which at best is at least twice
removed from its primary source, cannot be accepted as indubitably establishing
the context within which Dublin’s
death should be viewed.  The POEA and the
NLRC had every reason to declare that there was lack of conclusive or credible
proof that Dublin intentionally
took his own life.  In any case, this
Court is not prepared to rule that a contract contravenes public policy and is
therefore void which, by not specifically excepting suicide in a clause
obligating one of the parties to pay compensation for the death of the other,
may in theory enable the latter’s estate, or his heirs, to profit from his
self-immolation.

It is also argued that to compel payment of death benefits in
this case would amount not only to rewarding the act of murder or homicide, but
also inequitably to placing on NAESS the twin burdens of compensating both the
killer and his victim, who allegedly had also been employed under a contract
with a similar death benefits clause. 
This argument, in confusing the legal implications and effects of two
distinct and independent agreements, carries within itself the seeds of its own
refutation.  On Dublin’s
part, entitlement to death benefits resulted from his death while serving out
his contract of employment; it was not a consequence of his killing of the
second cook, Rodolfo Fernandez.  If the
latter’s death is also compensable, that is due to the solitary fact of his
death while covered by a similar contract, not precisely to the fact that he
met death at the hands of Dublin.  That both deaths may be related by cause and
effect and NAESS is the single obligor liable for compensation in both cases
must, insofar as the factual and legal bases of such liability is concerned, be
regarded as purely accidental circumstances. 
NAESS would have had no reason whatsoever to introduce into the present
dispute the matter of compensation benefits for Fernandez had Dublin, after
killing Fernandez, succumbed to a stroke or a heart attack instead of allegedly
taking his own life, because the contract of Fernandez, if the same as that of
Dublin as regards death benefits, would unquestionably cover death by murder or
misadventure.  There would still be no
reason to do so, that is, relate the
killing of Fernandez to the present compensation claim, merely on the
assertion, even if true, that Dublin
had committed suicide.

The further claim that payment of death benefits would be
premature because, Dublin’s body never
having been actually recovered, he can only be considered missing, must
be rejected, and not only because it so openly conflicts with NAESS’ insistence
that he committed suicide.  The Court has
no doubt, from such of the circumstances of the night of September 3, 1983 as to which the parties offer no
dispute, that Dublin in fact met
his death at that time.^[14]

The award of attorney’s fees, however, merits reconsideration and
must be set aside.  It has not been made
to appear that the contract of employment sued upon incorporates any
stipulation for payment of attorney’s fees in case of breach thereof and the
injured party is compelled to litigate for relief thereunder.  Neither does the record clearly show any
circumstance that would justify an award of such fees in the absence of
stipulation.^[15]

WHEREFORE, modified only to set aside and vacate the award
of US$3,196.00 for attorney’s fees made in the decision of the POEA and
affirmed in the Resolution of the National Labor Relations Commission herein
complained of, said Resolution is affirmed, with costs against petitioner
NAESS.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, C.J., Cruz, Paras*, and Gancayco, JJ., concur.

^[1] Rollo, pp. 74-76; 204-206, quoting from the ship’s
log.

^[2] Rollo, pp. 27, 126, 185.

^[3] Rollo, pp. 36, 163.

^[4] POEA Case No. M-84-08-704.

^[5] Rollo, pp. 50-52.

^[6] Rollo, pp. 16, 53-57.

^[7] Rollo,
pp. 35-40.

^[8] Rollo, pp. 42-48.

^[9] Rollo, pp. 14-32; at p. 18.

^[10] paragraph 18.

^[11] Philippine American General Insurance Co.,
Inc. vs. Mutuc, 61 SCRA 22, 27, citing
Feliciano vs. Limjuco, 16 Phil. 506.

^[12] Matienzo vs. Servidad, 107 SCRA 276, 281-182.

^[13] Rollo, pp. 59-60.

^[14]
SEE Eastern Shipping Lines v. Lucero, 124 SCRA 425.

^[15]
Art. 2208, Civil Code.

* Specially designated
as member of the First Division.