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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday, March 8, 2018
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AS THIS corner has repeatedly espoused, disabled seamen on overseas vessels are entitled to disability benefits. Often, however, they must demand for the right compensation. Otherwise, once rendered unfit to board another ship, they would be living the rest of their lives in penury.
Overseas Filipino seamen circling the globe are protected by the law mandating the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to require all maritime manning agencies to utilize the POEA-drafted “standard employment contract,” as well as their collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
Unfortunately, maritime law sounds Greek to most lawyers because of the rarity of cases pitting seamen against their employers. Since overseas seamen are well-paid, the cases that find their way usually involve settlement of compensation claims for disability or death.
Here is where claimants often make the mistake of hiring the wrong lawyers. These as inexperienced lawyers or their representatives who frequent offices of maritime agencies in Metro Manila to offer their services to beleaguered complainants and ask for advance fees while promising to “deliver,” only to disappear, if not collude with the respondents.
To protect litigants from them, lawyers who specialize in maritime law have banded together behind an advocacy known as the Free Legal Assistance for Seafarers and Heirs (FLASH), with Gerry Linsangan as head lawyer.
One of its functions is to familiarize active overseas seafarers with the provisions of their POEA-standard contract in case of sickness, accident or death, any of which requires the employer/s to award a minimum amount for “total and permanent disability” to seafarers who become “unfit to work” during their term of employment, or to beneficiaries of those who die.
Another FLASH function is to render free legal assistance to such seamen, in the process freeing them of financial burden while fighting for what they deserve. The NLRC usually requires that lawyer’s fees for cases won by compensation claimants be paid by respondents.
A seaman repatriated within the period of his contract due to a disease or accident has an added benefit of free hospitalization or out-patient treatment for 120 days at the expense of the employer.
For total and permanent disability, the seafarer is entitled to receive at least US $60,000.
For death, the widow or closest living relative is entitled to receive at least $50,000. Moreover, a maximum of four of their minor children are also eligible to claim an additional $7,000 each for a total of $78,000, plus $1,000 for burial assistance.
Failure of the shipping company to settle any of the cited claims is always ground for the disabled seaman or his relatives to file a case before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC). Its decision is appealable before the Court of Appeals and, if warranted, before the Supreme Court.
The better news is that Filipino claimants may apply for much bigger benefits – between two to ten times their local equivalent – by filing a case before a maritime court of the country to where the employer’s ship is registered. This is only feasible, however, in such countries as Panama, the United States, Greece, Italy, Japan and Norway, among a few others. Certain lawyers from these countries are affiliated with the Free Legal Assistance for Seafarers and Heirs (FLASH).
Updated information on the FLASH cases are aired on the radio program “Tribuna sang Banwa” on Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo every Sunday at 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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