4/4/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly owned and operated by AMOSUP, for medical assistance under the care of Dr. George Matti, a company accredited physician, three days after his May 17, 1990 repatriation from Japan. On record, private respondent was examined and diagnosed at the Seamen's Hospital and was found to be suffering from congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy, so that he was declared unfit to work by no less than a company accredited physician in the person of Dr. George Matti.[4] Petitioner was well aware of the private respondent's hospitalization at Moji, Japan, as well as his repatriation on May 17, 1990. It was upon the advice of petitioner that he was examined and diagnosed at the Seamen's Hospital. There Dr. George Matti, petitioner's own accredited physician, declared him unfit to work. Petitioner could not now feign ignorance of this information. Two licensed physicians examined and diagnosed private respondent and both of them had issued similar findings, that private respondent was afflicted with congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy making him unfit to work. Strict rules of evidence are not applicable in claims for compensation. In NFD International Manning Agents, Inc. vs. NLRC, 269 SCRA 486, 494 (1997), we said: Strict rules of evidence, it must be remembered, are not applicable in claims for compensation and disability benefits. Private respondent having substantially established the causative circumstances leading to his permanent total disability to have transpired during his employment, we find the NLRC to have acted in the exercise of its sound discretion in awarding permanent total disability benefits to private respondent. Probability and not the ultimate degree of certainty is the test of proof in compensation proceedings. Consistently the Court has ruled that "disability should not be understood more on its medical significance but on the loss of earning capacity. Permanent total disability means disablement of an employee to earn wages in the same kind of work, or work of similar nature that [he] was trained for or accustomed to perform, or any kind of work which a person of [his] mentality and attainment could do. It does not mean absolute helplessness."[5] In disability compensation, we likewise held, it is not the injury which is compensated, but rather it is the incapacity to work resulting in the impairment of one's earning capacity.[6] Finally, petitioner faults public respondent for allowing the reimbursements of private respondent's medical expenses despite the fact that the latter's treatment was done by a physician not designated or accredited by the petitioner in violation of the POEA Standard Contract for Seamen. However, records of the case show that private respondent had initially sought treatment at Seamen's Hospital under the care of Dr. George Matti, a company accredited physician. Only after he was refused admission thereat was he compelled to seek medical assistance elsewhere. His life and health being at stake, private respondent did not have the luxury to scout for a companyaccredited physician nor was it fair at this late stage for his employer to deny him such https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/50425 4/6