By Czarina Nicole Ong  Former Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Villafuerte Sr. has been charged with graft before the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division in connection with the 2004 fertilizer fund scam. He was accused of violating Section 3(e) of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act together with former officer-in-charge, regional executive director of the Department of Agriculture (DA) Regional Field Unit V Hector Sales, provincial accountant Leticia Aliorde, former OIC provincial treasurer Mario Alicaway, and former assistant provincial agriculturist Jennifer Uy. Private individuals and Hexaphil Agriventures Inc. president Alex Rivera and area manager Victoria Ajero were likewise charged with graft. In the charge sheet filed by graft investigation and prosecution officer III Maria Vida Hechanova, Villafuerte and his co-accused were faulted for giving undue benefits to Hexaphil by purchasing 7,142 bottles of Hexaphil Liquid Fertilizer at P700 per bottle, which totals to P5,000,000. They did so without conducting public bidding, nor did they provide any justification for them to resort to direct contracting. It was Sales who endorsed Hexaphil - a company without legal personality - as a supplier to the province. Villafuerte approved the procurement while the other local officials pushed through with the transaction. Their bail bond has been set at P30,000 each. Meanwhile, Villafuerte has already filed a motion to quash and argued that his constitutional right to speedy disposition of case has been grossly violated by the Office of the Ombudsman since it took 11 years and 10 months since the filing of the complaint to reach the Sandiganbayan. The Ombudsman took over six years to conduct the fact-finding investigation, then took another five years to resolve the issue at the Preliminary Investigation stage. "When the respondent filed his motion to the Office of the Ombudsman to reconsider and dismiss this case, the said office merely mentioned such assertion of constitutional rights but continued to ignore them," Villafuerte's motion read. He added that "violation of due process that is constitutionally guaranteed by the fundamental law is a ground to dismiss the case." At the same time, Villafuerte invoked his right to be accorded equal protection of the law provided to other accused in similar cases before the Sandiganbayan with the same offense charged. The anti-graft court has already dismissed similar cases in the past, and Villafuerte said these were all favorable to the accused. "Given the foregoing, they demonstrate that the essential elements of Section 3(e) of R.A. 3019 have not been proven," he argued. "Indeed, the complaint for alleged violation...was based on the misappreciation of some relevant facts which resulted in the misrepresentation of the theory of conspiracy, which is inapplicable in the instant case." He maintained that he acted in absolute good faith when the project was awarded, and he merely made the purchase on behalf of the DA for the benefit of farmer-beneficiaries.