4/9/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly partakes of the nature of a reciprocal obligation. Reciprocal obligations are those which arise from the same cause, and where each party is effectively a debtor and a creditor of the other, such that the obligation of one is dependent upon the obligation of the other.[36] While the mandatory reporting requirement obliges the seafarer to be present for the post-employment medical examination, which must be conducted within three (3) working days upon the seafarer’s return, it also poses the employer the implied obligation to conduct a meaningful and timely examination of the seafarer. The petitioners failed to perform their obligation of providing timely medical examination, thus rendering meaningless Serna’s compliance with the mandatory reporting requirement. With his July 14, 1999 visit, Serna clearly lived up to his end of the agreement; it was the petitioners who defaulted on theirs. They cannot now be heard to claim that Serna should forfeit the right to claim disability benefits under the POEA-SEC and their CBA. The Court has in the past, under unique circumstances, sustained the award of disability benefits even if the seafarer’s disability had been assessed by a personal physician. In Philippine Transmarine Carriers, Inc. v. NLRC,[37] we affirmed the grant by the CA and by the NLRC of disability benefits to a claimant, based on the recommendation of a physician not designated by the employer. The “claimant consulted a physician of his choice when the company-designated physician refused to examine him.”[38] In Cabuyoc v. Inter-Orient Navigation Shipmanagement, Inc.,[39] we reinstated the NLRC’s decision, affirmatory of that of the labor arbiter, which awarded sickness wages to the petitioner therein even if his disability had been assessed by the Philippine General Hospital, not by a company-designated hospital. Similar to the case at bar, the seafarer in Cabuyoc initially sought medical assistance from the respondent employer but it refused to extend him help.[40] The above cases are in line with the Court’s declared liberal stance on the mandatory reporting requirement under the 1996 POEA-SEC and its earlier versions. In Maunlad Transport, Inc. v. Manigo, Jr.,[41] we declared: However, even prior to its amendment, Section 20-B(3) of the 1996 POEA had long been liberally construed by the Court to mean that while it is a condition sine qua non to the filing of claim for disability benefit that, within three working days from his repatriation, the claimant submits himself to medical examination by a company-designated physician, the assessment of said physician is not final, binding or conclusive on the claimant, the labor tribunal or the courts. In Crystal Shipping, Inc. v. Natividad, where the 1996 POEA-SEC was controlling, the Court upheld the medical report issued by the claimant's doctor of choice and disregarded that of the company-designated physician in view of the glaring apparent inconsistency in the latter's medical report between the classification of claimant's disability as Grade 9 and the fact stated that said claimant had been unable to work for three years, which condition makes his disability permanent and total. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55380 8/13