B. COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS FOR INJURY OR ILLNESS
The liabilities of the employer when the seafarer suffers work-related
injury or illness during the term of his contract are as follows:
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6. In case of permanent total or partial disability of the seafarer
caused by either injury or illness the seafarer shall be
compensated in accordance with the schedule of benefits
enumerated in Section 32 of this Contract. Computation of his
benefits arising from an illness or disease shall be governed by
the rates and the rules of compensation applicable at the time
the illness or disease was contracted. [Emphasis supplied.]
Evident from the afore-quoted provision is that the permanent total or
partial disability suffered by a seafarer during the term of his contract must be
caused by work-related illness or injury. In other words, to be entitled to
compensation and benefits under said provision, it is not sufficient to establish
that the seafarers illness or injury has rendered him permanently or partially
disabled, but it must also be shown that there is a causal connection between the
seafarers illness or injury and the work for which he had been contracted for.
Accordingly, in order to hold Trans-Global and Ventnor liable for
payment of his claims under Sec. 20(b), paragraph 6, of the2000 POEA
Amended Standard Terms and Conditions Governing the Employment of
Filipino Seafarers on Board Ocean-Going Vessels, Masangcay must prove that
he is suffering from permanent total or partial disability due to a work-related
illness occurring during the term of his contract. Proof that he not only acquired
or contracted his illness during the term of his employment contract is clearly
not enough; Masangcay must also present evidence that such infirmity was
work-related, or at the very least aggravated by the conditions of the work for
which he was contracted for.
In the case of Rio v. Employees Compensation Commission, this Court
had the occasion to state that a claimant must submit such proof as would
constitute a reasonable basis for concluding either that the conditions of
employment of the claimant caused the ailment or that such working conditions
had aggravated the risk of contracting that ailment. What kind and quantum of
evidence would constitute an adequate basis for a reasonable man (not
necessarily a medical scientist) to reach one or the other conclusion, can
obviously be determined only on a case-to-case basis. That evidence must,