4/9/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Under the 1996 POEA-SEC, it is enough that the seafarer proves that his or her injury or illness was acquired during the term of employment to support a claim for disability benefits.[28] The petitioners claim that there is no substantial evidence on this point. We do not find this claim to be persuasive. In support of this point, Serna attached the following to his complaint: (a) the October 1998 contract; (b) the medical certificate issued by Dr. Manabat; (c) the medical certificate issued by Dr. Torres; (d) the August 5, 1999 Seaman’s Hospital PreEmployment Medical Examination; and (e) the medical certificate issued by Dr. Caja. We find it significant that Serna was declared fit to work in the pre-employment medical examination for the October 1998 contract. He was not in this same state, however, when he disembarked. As the CA explained: The presumption that private respondent Serna was healthy and fit at the time he started working for the petitioners gains special prominence, considering that he would not have been employed by the petitioners and would not have passed the required Pre-employment Medical Examination, had he not been “medically and technically qualified.” It certainly strains credulity to take petitioners’ stance that private respondent Serna’s illness was acquired by him after he signed-off their vessels or immediately after his contract of employment with them. Private respondent Serna’s illness is not a simple cough or colds that could have been acquired in a matter of days. This Court finds the evidence in favor of private respondent Serna substantial and convincing. That he was not well and was really ill after his disembarkation from petitioners’ vessel is confirmed by the fact that he immediately went to see a doctor, approximately fifteen (15) days after his arrival in the Philippines, i.e.[,] July 27, 1999, and was diagnosed of having toxic goiter. Again, when private respondent Serna was examined by a company-designated physician during the pre-employment medical examination on August 5, 1999 at the Seaman’s Hospital, he was found to be suffering from Atrial Fibrillation and was declared unfit to work. These facts could only suggest, considering that the tests were conducted closely near to private respondent Serna’s disembarkation from the vessel of his latest employment, that the causative circumstances leading to his illness transpired prior to his disembarkation and during the course of his employment with the petitioners.[29] (citations omitted) We find no arbitrariness in the appellate court’s appreciation of the evidence on record and see no reason to disturb its conclusion on its evidentiary weight, specifically, its substantiality. We reiterate that substantial evidence is more than a mere scintilla. It is such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion, even if other minds, equally reasonable, might conceivably opine otherwise. [30] elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55380 6/13