A FORMER vice governor of Camarines Sur on Monday filed plunder charges against Gov. Luis Raymund “LRay” Villafuerte Jr. for allegedly using his position to amass ill-gotten wealth.

Former Camarines Sur Vice Gov.  Mariano Trinidad, in his capacity as a registered voter and taxpayer, filed the plunder charge against Villafuerte, his wife Lara Maria and two sons, Miguel Luis and Julio Mari.

Also charged with plunder as well as dishonesty, grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service are provincial government officials, namely, former Provincial Treasurer Mario Alicaway, current Provincial Treasurer Leticia Aliorde, acting Provincial Accountant Teresita Genova, Vida Reyes, Ann Tiongco and Kris Daniel Reyes.

Trinidad alleged that Villafuerte and his co-respondents directly participated or participated through indispensable cooperation, over a period of six years, in repeated violation of Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code, RA 9184 or the Government Procurement Act and Commission on Audit rules.

Trinidad said the respondents entered into “anomalous, irregular and highly disadvantageous contracts, extended undue and unwarranted advantage to third parties in exchange for pecuniary benefit, and fraudulently conveyed government funds in a number of tourism-related activities.”

These activities, he said, included the 2006 Kaogma Festival involving unlawful disbursement of public funds amounting to P28 million; the 2006-2007 acquisition of two vessels involving the irregular disbursement of  P24 million to suppliers; and the 2008 Kaogma Festival where the provincial government entered into highly irregular transactions with consultants who were paid P13 million.

Also cited in the complaint are the 2008 World Wakepark Championship where the respondents entered into an allegedly irregular transaction with a consultant who was paid P9 million; the 2009 World Wakepark Championship where consultants were paid P13 million; the 2010 highly irregular agreement with Gota Resort for the use of government-owned facilities and failure to account for P13 million; and the 2010 CamSur Marathon where the respondents allowed a private corporation to perform the duties of provincial treasurer and failed to account for P5.5 million in revenues.

In these seven transactions alone, Trinidad said, the provincial government lost a total of P104.5 million.

The complaint also alleged that Villafuerte was able to amass more than P50 million of ill-gotten wealth which he, in connivance with his wife and two sons, along with three provincial government officials, funneled to Republic Wake Parks Inc. 

The corporation, Trinidad said, used the money to build the multimillion-peso Republic Nuvali Wakepark in Santa Rosa, Laguna, which now directly competes with the CamSur Watersports Complex run by the provincial government.

Trinidad said that Villafuerte, in his bid to make Camarines Sur a premier tourist destination in the country, entered into “anomalous and irregular” transactions in violation of laws and COA rules.

Trinidad asked the Ombudsman to order the preventive suspension of Villafuerte and the other government officials named in the complaint for six months “to ensure that the integrity of the documents relevant to the complaint will be maintained and to prevent them from unduly influencing the investigation of the case.”