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[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY HERBERT L. VEGO
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Tuesday, November 21, 2017
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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.
Gaylord (real name withheld), an Ilonggo, 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.
In his ninth month on board the ship, Gaylord sought for renewal of his 10-month contract. Indeed, he had every reason to look forward to a rosier future.
However, his luck seemed to have run out 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 Gaylord 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 unrenewed 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 Gaylord, 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) with the help of Atty. Pete Linsangan, lead lawyer of the Free Legal Assistance for Seafarers and Heirs (FLASH) program.
Unfortunately, the labor arbiter sided with the agency on the pretext that a knee injury could not be classified as permanent disability.
On Atty. Linsangan’s advice, Gaylord 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 of $60,000 (equivalent to around P3 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 commented 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 Gaylord three years to win that battle for compensation.
Today, while he still moves around town on wheelchair, Gaylord is the proud owner or a restaurant. The boys who used to tease him for being gay are now among his customers.
Incidentally, Atty. Pete Linsangan, 78, the lawyer to whom Gay owes his second lease of life, passed away last Saturday (November 18). Condolences to the bereaved family. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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