By HERBERT VEGO
THIS corner has met a number of seamen who have no choice but “abandon” ship without finishing their contract term due to a debilitating disease that disables them for life.
In some cases, they fall victims to shrewd manning agencies that either short-change or deny them of their rightful disability compensation if they just wait, rather than demand, for permanent and total disability benefits provided by law.
A case in point is that of Hector Gamboa of General Santos City, who was offered a lump sum which was too small to tide his family over for a single year.
Fortunately for Gamboa, he refused to accept the token amount, which was equivalent to the salary he would have received for the contracted months he had not served. He knew that by accepting it, he and his family would live miserably ever after.
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, however, Hector complained of chest pain, persistent coughing and breathing difficulty. 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 played deaf and would only pay the balance of his unserved months within the contract period, arguing that, based on his latest check-up, his lung condition had improved.
Instinctively he knew he was being taken for a ride because of his low educational attainment. Being a mere high school graduate, he had stuck to his original position as utility worker.
A fellow seaman told him not to believe the agency personnel who were naturally trying to appease the ship owners and their insurers. There had been cases of manning agencies losing foreign principals due to “overload” of compensation claimants.
On advice of Atty. Pete Linsangan, head of the Free Legal Assistance for Seafarers (FLAS), Gamboa filed a motion for arbitration at the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC).
The NLRC arbiter ruled that since the company physician and complainant’s private physician were unanimous in their conclusion that his 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 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) has a branch office at GSAT, 2nd Flr., Jamerlan Bldg., Iznart St., Iloilo City. It sponsors a weekly radio program for seafarers, “Tribuna sang Banwa” on Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo every Sunday, 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., hosted by paralegals Neri Camiña, Nelly Nobleza and this writer. We may be reached by cell phone numbers 09173288742 and 09183340067, respectively./PN
