BY HERBERT VEGO
IF you are a very sick overseas seaman who applies for permanent disability benefits, would you accept the shipping agency’s “Sorry, you are not entitled” alibi for an answer?
We know seamen who meekly nod, in effect depriving themselves of rightful compensation that could make a difference in their post-sea life.
Fortunately for Fermin Gamboa of General Santos City, he refused “sorry” for an answer, otherwise he would have been sorry for the rest of his life.
To begin his story, let us zero in on the end of his seven-year career as a “utility hand” on the ships managed by Singa Ship Management.
Gamboa boarded the vessel Queen Elizabeth on February 9, 2012, having signed another nine-month contract and passed the requisite pre-employment medical examination. Still in his 30s, owing to his robust physique, he was hopeful of completing his tenure of contract.
On April 3, or barely two months after boarding, Fermin complained of chest pain, persistent coughing and difficulty of breathing. Two more days later, he was spitting blood. The ship doctor gave him oral medicines but to no avail.
On the ship’s arrival at a port in Egypt, the ship captain recommended his confinement at Sham International Hospital. Doctors thereat found him suffering from pleurisy, a lung disease in which the victim’s lungs are sore, making breathing difficult.
The ship captain decided that patient had to be discharged, nevertheless, for repatriation to the Philippines. The American ship physician, Dr. Robert Stevens, agreed and referred the patient to Metropolitan Medical Center in Manila for further confinement.
The company-designated doctor at Metropolitan confirmed the finding of the Egyptian doctors. Chronic and incurable inflammation of Jim’s lungs, he reported, had set in.
Logically, he visited the Manila office of Singa Ship Management to apply for permanent and total disability benefits on the ground that he had caught his disease in line of duty, hence work-related. The Singaporean agency refused to pay, arguing that, based on his latest check-up, his lung condition had improved.
On advice of Atty. Pete Linsangan, head of the Free Legal Assistance for Seafarers (FLAS) advocacy, Fermin Gamboa filed a motion for arbitration at the National Labor Relations Commission.
The arbiter ruled that since the company physician and complainant’s private physician were unanimous in their conclusion that the seaman’s illness was work related and that he was unfit to board a ship again, he was entitled to total and permanent disability benefits in the amount of US $60,000.
The arbiter quoted a Supreme Court decision in Vicente vs. EOG (G.R. No. 85024, Jan. 23, 1991), which held:
“A total disability does not require that the employee be absolutely disabled or totally paralyzed. What is necessary is that the injury must be such that the injury must be such that the employee cannot pursue his usual work and earn therefrom.”
Incidentally, if you have seafaring relatives who have the same problem as Gamboa’s, the Free Legal Assistance for Seafarers (FLAS) invites you to visit its office at GSAT, 2nd Flr., Jamerlan Bldg., Iznart St., Iloilo City; and to listen to the radio program “Tribuna sang Banwa” on Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo every Sunday, 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., hosted by paralegals Neri Camiña and this writer. We may be reached by cell phone numbers 09173288742 and 09183340067, respectively./PN
