5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly for a period exceeding 120 days, automatically entitles him to permanent and total disability benefits based on a Grade I (120%) impediment rating. Simbajon bases his claim in our ruling in Crystal Shipping, where we characterized permanent disability as the inability of a worker to perform his job for more than 120 days, regardless of whether or not he loses the use of any part of his body.[66] On the other hand, the petitioners claim that the reckoning period for a declaration of permanent and total disability should not be 120 but rather 240 days.[67] In short, the petitioners claim that Crystal Shipping is no longer the governing case law for the fact situation of this case. In Vergara v. Hammonia Maritime Services, Inc., et al.,[68] the Court had the occasion to clarify when a seafarer becomes entitled to permanent and total disability benefits: As these provisions operate, the seafarer, upon sign-off from his vessel, must report to the company-designated physician within three (3) days from arrival for diagnosis and treatment. For the duration of the treatment but in no case to exceed 120 days, the seaman is on temporary total disability as he is totally unable to work. He receives his basic wage during this period until he is declared fit to work or his temporary disability is acknowledged by the company to be permanent, either partially or totally, as his condition is defined under the POEA Standard Employment Contract and by applicable Philippine laws. If the 120 days initial period is exceeded and no such declaration is made because the seafarer requires further medical attention, then the temporary total disability period may be extended up to a maximum of 240 days, subject to the right of the employer to declare within this period that a permanent partial or total disability already exists. The seaman may of course also be declared fit to work at any time such declaration is justified by his medical condition. [emphasis ours] Under this ruling,[69] a finding by the company-designated doctor that the seafarer needs further treatment beyond the initial 120-day period results in the extension of the period for the declaration of the existence of a permanent partial or total disability to 240 days. Thus, contrary to Simbajon’s claim, his inability to resume work after the lapse of more than 120 days from the time he suffered his illness does not by itself automatically entitle him to permanent and total disability benefits. In the present case, Simbajon’s several consultations with the company-designated doctors revealed that his DM Type II was asymptomatic. Because of this finding, the company-designated doctors had to conduct further treatments and prescribe his continuous medication before finally concluding that he was fit to return to work on February 2, 2005, or 172 days from his disembarkation. The period is 68 days short of the 240 days provided in Vergara. Within this period, the company can continue to treat the employee or conduct an observation period (while continuing to pay his total elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/57289 9/16