BY HERBERT L. VEGO
ANY ordinary person lucky enough to qualify for a job on a cruise ship becomes “extraordinary.” He sails around the world just like any rich tourist – except that instead of spending big money, he earns it.
Nene Agi (real name withheld) found this out for himself on the first day he set foot on the swanky “Caribbean Princess”, an overseas cruise ship, as waiter. For on that day he received a fat tip from a passenger for “good food and service.”
His good luck spread out in Murcia, Negros Occidental where he had come from; where the boys used to poke fun at him for being effeminate. With the dollars he was sending to his poor parents, the latter built a concrete house on the same spot where a bamboo-and-nipa hut had rotted.
In his ninth month on board the ship, Nene Agi knew that he had done his job well and therefore would be asked to renew his contract for another 10 months. Indeed he had every reason to look forward to a rosier future.
However, his luck seemed to have run out in his 10th month in February 2007. While rushing to deliver an ordered meal to a cabin, he slipped on the staircase and fell down the lower floor. The accident caused excruciating pain in his knees.
On another day, his pain had worsened so intolerably that the ship physician recommended his repatriation to Manila for immediate treatment of knee injury. Under maritime law, he was entitled to company-sponsored hospitalization and medicines for 120 days.
An orthopedic surgeon operated on Nene Agi at the Metropolitan Medical Center.
Days after the operation, he complained that his condition had not improved. The surgeon then advised him to undergo a second surgery with no guarantee of success. The waiter refused.
His contract having expired, the shipping agency had him checked by a company-designated physician for the purpose of grading him for disability benefits. Graded 10, he would be receiving a one-time disability compensation of US $10,075. Knowing that he was no longer fit to resume ship work, however, he refused the offered amount and insisted on being paid the standard $60,000 for total and permanent disability compensation.
To Nene Agi, the world seemed to have crumbled when the shipping agency would not pay him that much. So he filed a complaint against the shipping agency before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) on the advice of Atty. Pete Linsangan, lead lawyer of the Free Legal Assistance for Seafarers (FLAS) program.
Unfortunately, the labor arbiter sided with the agency on the pretext that a knee injury could not be classified as permanent disability.
Undaunted, Nene Agi moved for reconsideration, insisting that his injury would no longer render him fit to work. This time, the NLRC ruled in his favor, ordering the shipping agency to award the amount sought for, $60,000 (equivalent to around P2.6 million today).
The agency, however, would not budge and sought redress with the Court of Appeals and later with the Supreme Court, both of which affirmed the NLRC ruling.
The Supreme Court reiterated its oft-quoted view that “permanent total disability means disablement of an employee to earn wages in the same kind of work that he was trained or accustomed to perform.”
It took Nene Agi three years to win that battle for compensation.
Today, while he still moves around town on wheelchair, he is the proud owner of a restaurant. The boys who used to tease him for being gay are now the gentlemen who patronize his eatery “pag may pera.”
Let Nene Agi’s story be a reminder to the still active overseas seamen that they don’t enjoy the normal “security of tenure” accorded land-based workers. Their “employability” hinges on physical fitness.
Incidentally, for updates on ongoing legal battles handled by the Free Legal Assistance for Seafarers (FLAS), please listen to the radio program “Tribuna sang Banwa” on Aksyon Radyo every Sunday, 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. It is hosted by paralegals Neri Camiña, Nelly Nobleza and this writer, who may be contacted through cellular phone number 09173288742./PN
