5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly respondent’s] body”[58] should not automatically mean that the “splashing” was caused by pure accident. It is equally reasonable to conclude that the “splashing” – as may be inferred from both the LA’s and NLRC”s findings – was a by-product of respondent’s botched sabotage attempt. While respondent contended that the affidavits and statements of the vessel’s officers and his fellow crew members should not be given probative value as they were biased, self-serving, and mere hearsay, he nonetheless failed to present any evidence to substantiate his own theory. Besides, as correctly pointed out by the NLRC, the corroborating affidavits and statements of the vessel’s officers and crew members must be taken as a whole and cannot just be perfunctorily dismissed as self-serving absent any showing that they were lying when they made the statements therein.[59] Third, petitioners’ theory that respondent’s burns were self-inflicted gains credence through the existence of motive. At this juncture, the Court finds it important to examine the existence of motive in this case since no one actually saw what transpired in the incinerator room. To this end, the confluence of the circumstances antecedent to the burning should be examined in conjunction with the existing accounts of the crew members. That said, both the LA and the NLRC made a factual finding that prior to the burning incident, respondent was caught pilfering the vessel’s supplies for which he was told that he was to be relieved from his duties. This adequately supports the reasonable conclusion that respondent may have harbored a grudge against the captain and the chief steward who denied giving him the questioned items. At the very least, it was natural for him to brood over feelings of resentment considering his impending dismissal. These incidents shore up the theory that he was motivated to commit an act of sabotage which, however, backfired into his own burning. In this relation, the Court observes that a definitive pronouncement on respondent’s mental unfitness need not be reached since the totality of the above-stated circumstances already figures into the rational inference that respondent’s burning was not a product of an impaired mental disposition but rather an incident which sprung from his own volition. Mental impairment connotes the lack of control over one’s action. If the actor is conscious of what he is doing, as respondent was in this case by sabotaging the ship, then a finding of mental unfitness is not needed. Differing from the CA's take on the matter, it is not contrary to human experience or logic for a spumed man to resort to tactics of desperation, however ludicrous or extreme those tactics may be, or however untoward or unfortunate its consequences may tum out, as in this case. All told, petitioners having established through substantial evidence that respondent's injury was self-inflicted and, hence, not compensable pursuant to Section 20 (D) of the 1996 POEA-SEC, no grave abuse of discretion can be imputed against the NLRC in upholding the dismissal by the LA of his complaint for disability benefits. It is wellsettled that an act of a court or tribunal can only be considered to be tainted with grave abuse of discretion when such act is done in a capricious or whimsical exercise of judgment as is equivalent to lack of jurisdiction. [60] For the reasons herein detailed, elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/56605 8/31