5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly effort to secure compliance with the law was made; Rosales immediately filed his complaint with the LA. As we recently ruled in Bahia Shipping Services, Inc., et al. v. Crisante C. Constantino,[27] when the seafarer challenges the company doctor’s assessment through the assessment made by his own doctor, the seafarer shall so signify and the company thereafter carries the burden of activating the third doctor provision. To definitively clarify how a conflict situation should be handled, upon notification that the seafarer disagrees with the company doctor’s assessment based on the duly and fully disclosed contrary assessment from the seafarer’s own doctor, the seafarer shall then signify his intention to resolve the conflict by the referral of the conflicting assessments to a third doctor whose ruling, under the POEA-SEC, shall be final and binding on the parties. Upon notification, the company carries the burden of initiating the process for the referral to a third doctor commonly agreed between the parties. In Bahia, we said: In the absence of any request from him (as shown by the records of the case), the employer-company cannot be expected to respond. As the party seeking to impugn the certification that the law itself recognizes as prevailing, Constantino bears the burden of positive action to prove that his doctor’s findings are correct, as well as the burden to notify the company that a contrary finding had been made by his own physician. Upon such notification, the company must itself respond by setting into motion the process of choosing a third doctor who, as the POEA-SEC provides, can rule with finality on the disputed medical situation. In the absence of a third doctor resolution of the conflicting assessments between Dr. Lim and Dr. Almeda, Dr. Lim’s assessment of Constantino’s health should stand.[28] Thus, the CA’s conclusion that Constantino’s inability to work for more than 120 days rendered him permanently disabled cannot be sustained. Thus, as matters stand in the present case, the complaint was premature; it should have been dismissed as early as the LA’s level since the fit-to-work certification and grading by the company-designated physician prevails unless a third party doctor, sought by the parties, declares otherwise. Significantly, no reason was ever given why the LA and the NLRC both disregarded the third-doctor provision under the POEA-SEC. For similarly ruling, the CA fell into the same error. [29] Once again, it appears to us, that the third-doctor-referral provision of the POEA-SEC, has been honored more in the breach than in the compliance. This is unfortunate considering that the provision is intended to settle disability claims at the parties’ level where the claims can be resolved more speedily than if they were to be brought to court.[30] elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/57993 7/10