You mentioned you have a patio villa. If your beds aren't expansive and you wish to do flower gardening, using mulch would be preferable in my opinion.
Easier to plant things or change them seasonally, easy to pull weeds out and to effectively apply products like Preen.
My preference would be pine needles as they stay in place well, are easy to lay down or remove and are not expensive. Pine needles also acidify the soil as they break down- good for acid loving plants, such as azaleas and gardenias.
If you are concerned about not attracting bugs (I don't think you need to be overly concerned) there are two good natural alternatives I know of:
Eucalyptus mulch or Melalucca mulch. You can research sources online.
These will be more expensive, but perhaps give you more peace of mind.
There was a scare about termites being brought in through purchased mulch awhile back- as many old or diseased trees that went down in the Louisiana hurricane were shredded, bagged and moved as cheap, unlabeled mulch.
The only real downside to mulch is that it will burn if it is dry and say, a carelessly tossed cigarette butt or spark from a fire pit or barbecue hits it.
Stone still gets weeds popping through, and catches debris. It's good for permanent plantings and has a beautiful appearance but is more difficult to work in if you want to change out plants. Rock will not prevent ant mounds- if those little critters are determined.
I use both rock and mulch in different areas- and also use plants as ground cover.
