6/5/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly SO ORDERED.[14] On appeal, the NLRC reversed and set aside the findings of the LA and awarded US$60,000.00 to Zafra after finding his injury permanent and total. It explained that, in disability compensation, what was being compensated was not the injury per se but the incapacity to work. Considering that more than 240 days from date of repatriation had lapsed without any declaration of fitness to work from the company-designated physician, the NLRC found him entitled to receive permanent total disability benefit in the amount of US$60,000.00. Thus: WHEREFORE, premises considered, the Decision dated October 21, 2010 is hereby SET ASIDE and a new one entered ordering respondents jointly and solidarity to pay complainant permanent total disability benefit in the amount of US$60,000.00 plus ten percent (10%) thereof as attorney's fees, or in the total amount of US$66,000.00. All other claims are dismissed for lack of merit. SO ORDERED.[15] Aggrieved, the petitioners filed a petition for certiorari with the CA,[16] asserting that the NLRC should have considered the final assessment which was made in accordance with the Schedule of Disability Impediment provided for in Section 32 of the POEA-SEC and issued within the 240-day period. They also challenged the award of attorney's fees amounting to $6,000.00 on the ground that it could only be given when the circumstances warrant the same. In Zafra's case, the petitioners opined that there was no basis for the said award. Zafra, on the other hand, cited Abante v. KJS Fleet Management Manila,[17] where it was ruled that the failure of the company-designated physician to pronounce the petitioner fit to work within the 120-day period entitled him to permanent total disability benefits in the amount of $60,000.00. He further claimed that the medical certificates with assessment or grading issued within the 240-day period and presented by the petitioners were belatedly manufactured to remedy the obvious flaws in their legal position. In its June 4, 2012 Decision, the CA affirmed[18] the NLRC decision. According to the CA, the test of whether or not an employee suffered from permanent total disability was a showing of the capacity of the employee to continue performing his work, notwithstanding the disability incurred. Thus, if by reason of the injury or sickness sustained, the employee was unable to perform his customary job for more than 120 days and he did not come within the coverage of Rule X of the Amended Rules on Employees Compensability, then the said employee undoubtedly suffered from permanent total disability regardless of whether or not he lost the use of any part of his body. Even if the 120-day period could be extended to 240 days, the employer must make a declaration within the same period, otherwise, characterizing the injury as permanent and total would become inevitable. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/60608 3/11