6/7/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly these Rules. .... RULE X - TEMPORARY TOTAL DISABILITY SECTION 2. Period of entitlement, (a) The income benefit shall be paid beginning on the first day of such disability. If caused by an injury or sickness it shall not be paid longer than 120 consecutive days except where such injury or sickness still requires medical attendance beyond 120 days but not to exceed 240 days from onset of disability in which case benefit for temporary total disability shall be paid. However, the System may declare the total and permanent status at any time after 120 days of continuous temporary total disability as may be warranted by the degree of actual loss or impairment of physical or mental functions as determined by the System. (Emphasis supplied) In C.F. Sharp Crew Management, Inc. v. Taok,[102] this court clarified the apparent conflict between Section 20(B)(3) of the POEA Standard Employment Contract and Rule X, Section 2 of the Amended Rules on Employees' Compensation: While it may appear under Paragraph 3, Section 20 of the POEA-SEC and Article 192(c)(l) of the Labor Code that the 120-day period is non-extendible and the lapse thereof without the employer making any declaration would be enough to consider the employee permanently disabled, interpreting them in harmony with Section 2, Rule X of the AREC indicates otherwise. That if the employer's failure to make a declaration on the fitness or disability of the seafarer is because of the latter's need for further medical attention, the period of temporary and total disability may be extended to a maximum of 240 days.... .... Based on this Court's pronouncements in Vergara, it is easily discernible that the 120-day or 240-day period and the obligations the law imposed on the employer are determinative of when a seafarer's cause of action for total and permanent disability may be considered to have arisen. Thus, a seafarer may pursue an action for total and permanent disability benefits if: (a) the company-designated physician failed to issue a declaration as to his fitness to engage in sea duty or disability even after the lapse of the 120-day period and there is no indication that further medical treatment would address his temporary total disability, hence, justify an extension of the period to 240 days; (b) 240 days had lapsed without any certification being issued by the company-designated physician; (c) the company-designated physician declared that he is fit for sea duty within the 120-day or 240-day period, as the case may be, but his physician of choice and the doctor chosen under Section 20-B(3) of the POEA-SEC are of a contrary opinion; (d) the company-designated physician acknowledged that he is partially permanently disabled but other doctors who he consulted, on his own and jointly with his employer, believed that his disability is not only permanent but total as well; (e) the company-designated physician recognized that he elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/61719 14/26