CamSur gov files plunder charge vs deputy House speaker

MANILA, Philippines – Camarines Sur Governor Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. filed plunder and graft charges Thursday against House Deputy Speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella, his wife and two sons for allegedly amassing more than P80 million in ill-gotten wealth from government funds to finance personal projects.

“My message to the Fuentebellas is to stop this,” Villafuerte told reporters after filing the complaint at the Office of the Ombudsman, challenging them to face the charges squarely instead of claiming this was motivated by politics.

Charged along with Fuentebella were his wife Evelyn Villafuerte, mayor of the town of Sagnay  in Camarines Sur, and sons Arnulf Bryan, mayor of Tigaon town, and Felix William, commissioner of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board.

Villafuerte alleged that the Fuentebellas amassed ill-gotten wealth by misappropriating, misusing and malversing public funds, benefited from government contracts, illegally conveyed government assets, and enriched themselves at the expense of the government.

The governor charged that the Fuentebellas spent public funds on infrastructure projects inside their sprawling 50,000-square-meter property, where a P25-million mansion is located, in Sitio Elis Point, Barangay Patitinan, Sagnay.

These included a P15-million road to the property, which is surrounded by a fence and gate; a P2-million multi-purpose building; P2-million concreting of road; and P3.5-million concreting of the multi-purpose pavement; and a P3-million structure that is supposedly a lighthouse.

What was built was not actually a lighthouse but the viewdeck of the Fuentebellas Resort, he said.

“All the foregoing projects apparently have two things in common: First they are all funded from government money; and secondly, and ironically, they are all found in the private properties of the Fuentebellas,  mostly within the Sitio  (sub-village) Elis Point, the property of Arnulfo,” he said in the complaint.