4/29/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly classified as permanent and total disability. The findings of the NLRC on the degree of the petitioner’s disability are most in accord with the evidence on record. As ardently observed by the labor commission, the orthopedic surgeon designated by the respondents, Dr. Chuasuan, and the petitioner’s independent specialist, Dr. Sabado, were one in declaring that the petitioner is permanently unfit for sea duty. Dr. Sabado categorically pronounced the same in his certification dated February 15, 2009[32] while the import of Dr. Chuasuan’s report on February 7, 2009[33] conveyed the similar conclusion when he stated: “[f]urther treatment would probably be of some benefit but will not guarantee (the petitioner’s) fitness to work.” The uncertain effect of further treatment intimates nothing more but that the injury sustained by the petitioner bars him from performing his customary and strenuous work as a seafarer/fitter. As such, he is considered permanently and totally disabled. Permanent and total disability means “disablement of an employee to earn wages in the same kind of work or work of a similar nature that he was trained for or accustomed to perform, or any kind of work which a person of his mentality and attainment can do.”[34] It is inconsequential whether the petitioner was actually recorded by the respondents to be driving a motorcycle. It does not preclude an award for disability because, in labor laws, disability need not render the seafarer absolutely helpless or feeble to be compensable; it is enough that it incapacitates to perform his customary work.[35] It is not unexpected for Drs. Cruz-Balbon and Lim to downplay the report of Dr. Chuasuan when they issued the Grade 8 final disability assessment. The Court is not naive of such interplay of force between the seafarer, the company and the latter’s accredited physicians. As the medical coordinators of the hospital that represents the company in the conduct of medical evaluations, they are accustomed to do so in order to underrate the compensation the company must pay to the seafarer-claimant. This is precisely one of the reasons why the seafarer is given the option by the POEA-SEC to seek a second opinion from his preferred physician.[36] The award of permanent disability benefits shall be governed by the POEA-SEC. Settled is the rule that the burden of proof rests upon the party who asserts the affirmative of an issue. In labor cases, the quantum of proof necessary is substantial evidence, or such amount of relevant evidence which a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to justify a conclusion.[37] In disability claims, as in the case at bar, the employee bears the onus to prove by substantial evidence his own positive assertions. [38] To show that he is entitled to superior disability benefits under a CBA, the petitioner elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/56076 6/11