4/10/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Committee shall be unwaivable prerequisite or condition precedent for bringing any action, claim, or cause of action, legal or otherwise, before any court, tribunal, or panel in any jurisdiction. The failure by a party or seaman to so refer and avail oneself to the dispute resolution mechanism contained in this action shall bar any legal or other action. All parties expressly agree that the orderly resolution of all claims in the prescribed manner served the interests of reaching settlements or claims in an orderly and uniform manner, as well as preserving peaceful and harmonious labor relations between seaman, the Union, and the Company.[27] (emphases ours) What might have caused the CA to miss the clear intent of the parties in prescribing a grievance procedure in their CBA is, as the petitioners’ have intimated, the use of the auxiliary verb “may” in Article 14.7(a) of the CBA which, to reiterate, provides that “[i]f by reason of the nature of the Dispute, the parties are unable to amicably settle the dispute, either party may refer the case to a MANDATORY ARBITRATION COMMITTEE.”[28] While the CA did not qualify its reading of the subject provision of the CBA, it is reasonable to conclude that it viewed as optional the referral of a dispute to the mandatory arbitration committee when the parties are unable to amicably settle the dispute. We find this a strained interpretation of the CBA provision. The CA read the provision separately, or in isolation of the other sections of Article 14, especially 14.7(h), which, in clear, explicit language, states that the “referral of all unresolved disputes from the Grievance Resolution Committee to the Mandatory Arbitration Committee shall be unwaivable prerequisite or condition precedent for bringing any action, claim, or cause of action, legal or otherwise, before any court, tribunal, or panel in any jurisdiction”[29] and that the failure by a party or seaman to so refer the dispute to the prescribed dispute resolution mechanism shall bar any legal or other action. Read in its entirety, the CBA’s Article 14 (Grievance Procedure) unmistakably reflects the parties’ agreement to submit any unresolved dispute at the grievance resolution stage to mandatory voluntary arbitration under Article 14.7(h) of the CBA. And, it should be added that, in compliance with Section 29 of the POEA-SEC which requires that in cases of claims and disputes arising from a seafarer’s employment, the parties covered by a CBA shall submit the claim or dispute to the original and exclusive jurisdiction of the voluntary arbitrator or panel of voluntary arbitrators. Since the parties used unequivocal language in their CBA for the submission of their disputes to voluntary arbitration (a condition laid down in Vivero for the recognition of the submission to voluntary arbitration of matters within the original and exclusive jurisdiction of labor arbiters), we find that the CA committed a reversible error in its ruling; it disregarded the clear mandate of the CBA between the parties and the POEAelibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55239 8/11