BERNARDINO S. MANIOSO VS GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM

BERNARDINO S. MANIOSO

VS

GOVERNMENT SERVICE INSURANCE SYSTEM

457 SCRA 607 (2005)

Benefits due an employee due to work-related sickness shall be provided until he becomes gainfully employed, or until his recovery or death.

Bernardino Manioso is an Accounting Clerk I who started working at the Budget Commission on July 13, 1959. He was transferred to the Bureau of Forestry with the same position on August 10, 1959. He was promoted to the position of Senior Bookkepeer of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Region IV, Manila. It was in 1978 when Manioso was found to be suffering from Hypertensive Vascular Disease. Since then, Manioso was already in and out the hospital for the purpose of having tests conducted on him and to be hospitalized on several instances. From January 11, 1995 up to May 15,1995 when Manioso compulsory retired from the government service on reaching 65 years of age and after serving almost 36 years, he no longer reported for work. His sick leave covering the said period was duly approved.
Manioso filed with the GSIS for additional benefits claiming that the ailments for which he was hospitalized several times in 1997 developed from his work related illnesses.The GSIS disapproved petitioner’s request upon the ground that he was already paid the maximum monthly income benefit for eight (8) months covering the period from May 15, 1995 to January 14, 1996 commensuarate to the degree of his disability at the time of his retirement. On appeal, the GSIS’s ruling was also affirmed. Hence, this petition.

ISSUE:
Whether or not the Manioso is entitled to Permanent Total Disability Benefits

HELD:
Under Article 192 (a) of the Labor Code, any employee who contacts sickness or sustains an injury resulting in PTD shall, for each month until his death, be paid by the [GSIS] during such disability, an amount equivalent to the monthly income benefit, plus ten percent thereof for each dependent child, but not exceeding five. And under Article 192 (b) of the same Code, the only time the income benefits, which are guaranteed for five years, shall be suspended is if the employee becomes gainfully employed, or recovers from his PTD or fails to be present for examination at least once a year upon notice by the GSIS.

As Manioso’s medical records show that the ailments that he suffered in 1997 are complications that resulted from his work-related ailments, ‘the right to compensation extends to disability due to disease supervening upon and proximately and naturally resulting from compensable injury.

Manioso’s retirement from the service does not prevent him from availing of the PTD benefits to which he is entitled. For as stated earlier, benefits due an employee due to work-related sickness shall be provided until he becomes gainfully employed, or until his recovery or death. None of these is present in Manioso’s case.

It would be an affront to justice if Manioso, a government employee who had served for thirty six (36) years, is deprived of the benefits due him for work-related ailments that resulted in his Permanent Total Disability.