6/7/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly of further treatment intimates nothing more but that the injury sustained by the petitioner bars him from performing his customary and strenuous work as a seafarer/fitter." "As such, he is considered permanently and totally disabled." In this case, the company-designated doctor's prognosis of petitioner's fitness to resume sea duty was fair to good, and she recommended that petitioner should continue flexibility and strength exercises through his physiatrist. Further, petitioner contends that the Court of Appeals committed grave abuse of discretion when it refused to apply to him the case of Kestrel Shipping Company, Inc. v. Munar.[60] Indeed, Kestrel Shipping Company, Inc. is inapplicable to this case. It involved a complaint for disability benefit for an injury that happened in 2006. Hence, the Court applied the prevailing rule enunciated in Crystal Shipping, Inc. v. Natividad,[61] promulgated on October 20, 2005, that total and permanent disability refers to the seafarer's incapacity to perform his customary sea duties for more than 120 days. Crystal Shipping, Inc. was promulgated almost three years before Vergara was promulgated on October 6, 2008. Vergara pronounced that a temporary total disability.only becomes permanent when so declared by the company physician within the periods he/she is allowed to do so, or upon the expiration of the maximum 240-day medical treatment period without a declaration of either fitness to work or the existence of a permanent disability.[62] Kestrel Shipping Company, Inc. explained: This Court's pronouncements in Vergara presented a restraint against the indiscriminate reliance on Crystal Shipping such that a seafarer is immediately catapulted into filing a complaint for total and permanent disability benefits after the expiration of 120 days from the time he signedoff from the vessel to which he was assigned. Particularly, a seafarer's inability to work and the failure of the company-designated physician to determine fitness or unfitness to work despite the lapse of 120 days will not automatically bring about a shift in the seafarer's state from total and temporary to total and permanent, considering that the condition of total and temporary disability may be extended up to a maximum of 240 days. [63] The Court of Appeals correctly found that the CBA that covers petitioner's employment is the ITF Uniform "TCC" Collective Agreement, which was admitted by respondents, agreed to by the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC, but the Labor Arbiter and the NLRC erroneously used the rate of compensation of the ITF Standard Collective Agreement, which is a different agreement. Hence, the Court of Appeals correctly computed petitioner's disability benefit under the ITF Uniform TCC Collective Bargaining Agreement as follows: Disability compensation = 33.59% (Grade 8 disability) x US$90,882 = US$30,527.26 elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/63243 13/17