5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly any. On September 13, 2007, he was directed to process his Clearance[18] which read: “UNFIT – PEME” “MEDICAL TREATMENT (TERMINATED) – NO LONGER RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER SEA DUTIES – NON WORK REL.”[19] Subsequently, Jarin became a partial disability pensioner of the Social Security System[20] and no longer worked as seaman in view of his illness. On April 18, 2008, Jarin filed a complaint before the Arbitration Branch of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) claiming US$60,000.00 as permanent total disability benefit, US$2,889.60 as sickness allowance for his incapacity to work for 120 days pursuant to the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency-Standard Employment Contract for Filipino Seafarers (POEA-SEC), US$10,000.00 as moral damages and exemplary damages and ten percent (10%) of the total monetary award as attorney’s fees. The petitioners refused to pay and maintained that Jarin’s illnesses are not workrelated; that his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was assessed by their physicians to have resulted from his years of heavy smoking; that their liability as employer would arise only “when the seafarer suffers [a] work-related injury or illness during the term of his contract,” as indicated in Section 20(B) of the POEA-SEC.[21] Jarin, on the other hand, stressed that the cause of rheumatoid arthritis is not yet known to medical science based on medical articles that he read online;[22] that pursuant to GSIS v. Court of Appeals, et al.,[23] where the evidence of a causal relation of an illness to the working conditions of an employee is unavailable to medical science, the doubt should be resolved in favor of the compensability of the illness;[24] and that the medical reports issued to him are bias and inconclusive.[25] Decision of the Labor Arbiter In a Decision[26] dated September 23, 2008, the Labor Arbiter (LA) ruled that the seafarer’s clearance issued to Jarin stating that he is “unfit and no longer recommended for further sea duties” signifies his incapacity to work as a seaman. The petitioners’ evidence was found inadequate to dispute the presumption that illnesses not listed in Section 32[27] of the POEA-SEC are work-related. Thus, Jarin’s money claims were granted and he was awarded US$50,000.00 for suffering an illness categorized as Grade 1 Impediment based on the Schedule of Disability Allowances[28] of the POEASEC. He was also awarded US$2,889.60 for failure of the petitioners to show payment of his 120-day sickness allowance. The fallo of the decision reads: elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/57140 3/11