A former employee of the Negros Occidental Mental Health Center in Bacolod City has been cleared by the Court of Appeals in Cebu City that reversed a lower court ruling convicting him of homicide.

In its Dec. 9, 2005 decision, the 19th division of the Court of Appeals nullified the decision of Branch 50 of the Regional Trial Court in Negros Occidental that had earlier found Ronilo Gillang, a former psychiatric guard of the NOMHC, guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the killing of mental health patient Jose Belicena Jr.

In granting Gillang's appeal, the CA said that the RTC erred in convicting him of homicide based on circumstantial evidence.

The CA decision penned by Associate Justice Apolinario Bruselas Jr. and concurred in by Associate Justices Arsenio Magpale and Vicente Yap said not all requisites for conviction based on circumstantial evidence are found in the case.

It also said the RTC violated the established doctrine that a conviction based on circumstantial evidence must exclude each and every hypothesis consistent with the accused innocence.

The appellate court also said the prosecution was not able to prove the guilt of Gillang beyond reasonable doubt, to overcome the constitutional presumption of innocence in his favor.

On Oct. 7, 1998, Gillang had found Belicena unconscious at the NOMHC's isolation ward 3 and, along with fellow guard on-duty Theodore Chavez and head nurse Gemma Aungon brought him to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival, with asphyxia as the cause of death.

Gillang told police investigator Eduardo Garcia that Belicena hanged himself with a blanket, that he tied to a 2x2 inch piece of wood suspended from the ceiling.

But Garcia suspected that Gillang and Chavez were involved in the strangulation of Belicena, a drug addict, who had undergone detoxification at the CLMMRH, before his family availed of the services of the NOMHC.

Both Gillang and Chavez pleaded not guilty but only Chavez was acquitted by the RTC, which ordered Gillang to suffer the penalty of reclusion temporal in its minimum period and to pay the heirs of Belicena P110,000 for death indemnity, temperate damages and attorney's fees.

The CA said the RTC erred in relying on the findings of Garcia as stated in his investigation report that Belicena did not commit suicide, but that during examination in open court he also testified that it was possible that the victim had indeed hanged himself.

The lower court made the mistake of declaring witness Aungon's testimony as "biased, contrived and untruthful", the appellate court said.

The trial court also erred in disregarding the testimony of the prosecution's expert witness, Dr. Johnny Aritao, who said that under circumstances, it was possible that Belicena committed suicide, the CA further said in its decision. *CPT

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