5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Further, Ravena maintains that he is entitled to attorney's fees; the petitioners' fraudulent refusal to honor their contractual obligations forced him to seek the services of his counsel to vindicate his right. Finally, he argues that the amount of disability award should be increased to US$110,000.00 as provided under the CBA that governs his employment contract. The Court's Ruling We find the petition meritorious. Preliminary considerations: jurisdictional limitations of the Court's Rule 45 review of the CA's Rule 65 decision in labor cases The petitioners essentially argue that the evidence on record do not support the findings and conclusions of the CA. Ravena, under the proven facts, the law and jurisprudence, is entitled to disability benefits. This argument effectively raises factual issues — i.e., whether Ravena's illness — adenocarcinoma or cancer of the ampullary area — is compensable and whether Ravena has complied with the POEA-SEC prescribed procedures for determining Ravena's disability — that we cannot properly address in a Rule 45 petition for review on certiorari. We emphasize that in a Rule 45 petition, we review the legal errors that the CA may have committed in its decision, not only the jurisdictional errors that we look out for in an original certiorari action. In reviewing the legal correctness of the CA decision in a labor case under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court, we examine the CA decision in the context that it determined the presence or the absence of grave abuse of discretion in the NLRC decision before it, and not on the basis of whether the NLRC decision, on the merits of the case, was correct. Grave abuse of discretion means such capricious or whimsical exercise of power that amounts to an evasion or refusal to perform a positive duty enjoined by law or to act at all in contemplation of law. An act, to be struck down for grave abuse of discretion, must involve abuse that is patent or gross. In other words, in the present Rule 45 petition, we proceed from the premise that the CA undertook a Rule 65 review, not a review on appeal, of the NLRC decision challenged before it. Within this narrow scope of our Rule 45 review, the question that we ask is: Did the CA correctly determine whether the NLRC committed grave abuse of discretion in ruling on the case?[25] Under these premises, we generally cannot address this petition's factual issues. We are, however, not unaware that under certain exceptional circumstances, the Court unavoidably has to delve into and resolve factual issues. In situations where insufficient or insubstantial evidence have been adduced to support the findings under review, or when conclusions go beyond bare and incomplete facts submitted by the claimant, grave abuse of discretion may result and the Court is permitted to address factual issues. But, in this task, the Court's factual review power is exercised only to the extent necessary to determine whether the CA correctly reversed for grave abuse of discretion the NLRC decision that dismissed Ravena's disability benefits claim for lack of merit.[26] We find the present petition to be one of the exceptional cases, to the extent that it reversed the NLRC's decision that we find to be fully in accord with the evidence, the law and the prevailing Court rulings, the CA committed reversible error that justifies the Court's exercise of its factual review power. The provisions governing the seafarer's disability benefits claim The entitlement of an overseas seafarer to disability benefits is governed by the law, the employment contract and the medical findings.[27] elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/57785 4/12