1/4/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly In this case, the NLRC and the CA heavily anchored their ruling in favor of respondent's entitlement to permanent and total disability benefits on the fact of respondent's inability to work beyond 120 days from repatriation and the company-designated doctors' failure to issue a final assessment as to his fitness to work or disability grading within the said 120-day period, citing the case of Crystal Shipping,[39] Further, the NLRC and the CA denied the application of the 240-day extension period as originally pronounced by the Court in the case of Vergara v. Hammonia Martime Services, Inc., [40] reasoning that the company doctors failed to make a declaration that further treatment is necessary beyond the 120-day period to justify the application of the 240day extension. A judicious review of the records of this case, however, reveals otherwise. In Crystal Shipping, it was ruled that the seafarer's inability to perform his job for more than 120 days, regardless of whether or not he loses the use of any part of his body, entitles him to permanent and total disability benefits. In Vergara, the Court clarified that the doctrine expressed in Crystal Shipping cannot be applied in all situations. The apparent conflict between the two pronouncements — based on the provisions of 120-day period under the Labor Code and the POEA-SEC on one hand, and the 240-day period under the IRR on the other - has long been harmonized in subsequent cases.[41] In ElburgShipmanagement Phils., Inc. v. Quiogue, Jr.,[42] the Court laid down the following guidelines, to wit: 1. The company-designated physician must issue a final medical assessment on the seafarer's disability grading within a period of 120 days from the time the seafarer reported to him; 2. If the company-designated physician fails to give his assessment within the period of 120 days, without any justifiable reason, then the seafarer's disability becomes permanent and total; 3. If the company-designated physician fails to give his assessment within the period of 120 days with a sufficient justification (e.g. seafarer required further medical treatment or seafarer was uncooperative), then the period of diagnosis and treatment shall be extended to 240 days. The employer has the burden to prove that the company-designated physician has sufficient justification to extend the period; and 4. If the company-designated physician still fails to give his assessment within the extended period of 240 days, then the seafarer's disability becomes permanent and total, regardless of any justification. Clearly, as it stands now, the mere inability to work for a period of 120 days does not entitle a seafarer to permanent and total disability benefits. https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/65696 8/13