4/9/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly land-based job, which does not call for the agility required by the work on board a vessel.[22] They claim that temporary disability, or one that is capable of being treated and cured, is not compensable.[23] Penales, in his Comment,[24] reiterates that “in disability cases, it is not the nature and extent of the disability that is controlling but it is the negative impact created by the disability to one’s earning capacity that ultimately gauges the claimant’s chance of recovery.”[25] This Court finds petitioners to be mistaken in their notion that in determining the disability benefits due a seafarer, only the POEA SEC, specifically its schedule of benefits, must be considered. This Court has ruled that such is governed not only by medical findings but also by contract and law. [26] The applicability of the Labor Code, particularly Article 192(c)(1), to seafarers, is already a settled issue.[27] This Court, in Magsaysay Maritime Corporation v. Lobusta, [28] reiterating our ruling in Remigio v. National Labor Relations Commission,[29] held: The standard employment contract for seafarers was formulated by the POEA pursuant to its mandate under [Executive Order] No. 247 to “secure the best terms and conditions of employment of Filipino contract workers and ensure compliance therewith” and to “promote and protect the wellbeing of Filipino workers overseas.” Section 29 of the 1996 POEA [Standard Employment Contract] itself provides that “[a]ll rights and obligations of the parties to [the] Contract, including the annexes thereof, shall be governed by the laws of the Republic of the Philippines, international conventions, treaties and covenants where the Philippines is a signatory.” Even without this provision, a contract of labor is so impressed with public interest that the New Civil Code expressly subjects it to “the special laws on labor unions, collective bargaining, strikes and lockouts, closed shop, wages, working conditions, hours of labor and similar subjects.” Thus, the Court has applied the Labor Code concept of permanent total disability to the case of seafarers. In Philippine Transmarine Carriers v. NLRC, seaman Carlos Nietes was found to be suffering from congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy and was declared as unfit to work by the company-accredited physician. The Court affirmed the award of disability benefits to the seaman, citing ECC v. Sanico, GSIS v. CA, and Bejerano v. ECC that “disability should not be understood more on its medical significance but on the loss of earning capacity. Permanent total disability means disablement of an employee to earn wages in the same kind of work, or work of similar nature that [he] was trained for or accustomed to perform, or any kind of work which a person of [his] mentality and attainment could do. It does not mean absolute helplessness.” It likewise cited Bejerano v. ECC, that in a disability compensation, it is not the injury which is compensated, but rather elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55144 6/12