6/5/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Petitioners argue that Section 20 (A) 1 and (4) of the POEA SEC was primarily designed to be construed, together with Section 20(B) of the POEA SEC to compensate all claims for a seafarer or his beneficiary for the seafarer's injury, illness and death upon a seafarer's return from deployment in the Philippines pursuant to the local recruiter's use of deployment license in implementing the contract of employment itself pursuant to existing labor and social legislation for the employer to be socially responsible with the deployed worker's post-employment medical examination when the worker is returned from deployment to determine his claim for Workmen's Compensation benefits under the deployment itself as provided for by law and the POEA Rules and Regulations by itself and not as what the Court of Appeals claim in the assailed decision that said section compensates a seafarer's death only when the death is proven by the seafarer's beneficiaries with substantial evidence under the Rules of Court to be work-related and occurring during the term of the seafarer's term of the contract of employment. Petitioners also claim that the provisions of Section 20(B) (4) and Section 32-A of the POEA SEC by themselves that disputably presume work-relation of a seafarer's illness even if the illness is not listed in the list of compensable illness and occupational diseases of Section 32 of the POEA SEC itself negates the legality of the Court of Appeals' conclusion to the case that the Section 20(A) (1) and (4) of the POEA SEC compensates only a seafarer's death if the death is the result of a work-related illness. It is also asserted that because of the provisions of Section 20(B) (4) and Section 32-A of the POEA SEC that already disputably presumes all illnesses of a seafarer as workrelated and/or work-aggravated if listed as an occupational disease that therefore makes it contrary to law for the Court of Appeals to dismiss the claims of petitioners in the instant case on the basis of a mistaken, absurd and imposable legal conclusion that misapplies Section 20 (A) (1) and (4) of the POEA SEC to compensate only a seafarer's death when the death occurs during the term of the contract of employment itself when the death is substantially proven by the beneficiaries to be work-related pursuant to the quantum of evidence required by the Rules of Court itself. The petition is bereft of merit. It is well settled in jurisprudence that factual findings of administrative or quasi-judicial bodies, which are deemed to have acquired expertise in matters within their respective jurisdictions, are generally accorded not only respect but even finality, and bind the Court when supported by substantial evidence.[8] Consistent therewith is the doctrine that this Court is not a trier of facts, and this is strictly adhered to in labor cases.[9] We may take cognizance of and resolve factual issues, only when the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the Labor Arbiter or the NLRC are inconsistent with those of the CA.[10] The NLRC, as affirmed by the CA, found that the records are bereft of showing that Awatin's illness, adenocarcinoma, was contracted during the term of his last employment contract. It was noted that Awatin was declared fit to work when he was subjected to the mandatory pre-employment medical examination prior to his deployment on January 16, 2001. There was, likewise, no showing that he complained elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/60645 4/7