by Ellen Tordesillas

IMELDA MARCOS doesn't live there anymore, but the new occupant of No. 6 Intsia St. in exclusive South Forbes is no less controversial. Indeed, businessman Mark Jimenez, now the proud owner of Imelda’s former home (daughter Imee had rented it for her, actually), is probably the most talked about among President Joseph Estrada’s friends, although he is one of the most elusive, and certainly the most mysterious. And the little that is known about Jimenez only add more to his mystique, even if some of what can be confirmed on him do not seem positive at all. For example: The name he now has wasn’t given to him by his parents, the U.S. government wants him extradited, and he doesn’t have any qualms about meeting visitors in his pajamas, even without the benefit of a bath.

The last alone could have made anyone else a pariah in this smell-conscious country. But Mark Jimenez is no ordinary person, according to the President himself. Estrada has proclaimed him a “corporate genius,” a compliment made all the more extraordinary by the fact that it was bestowed just nine days after Jimenez got indicted in April in a Florida court for tax evasion, conspiracy, fraud and illegal campaign contributions. For good measure, Estrada also made his friend his “adviser on Latin American affairs.” Three months later, pressure from Washington would prompt the President to ask Jimenez to resign. But Malacañang would be unable to accept the resignation, since it would turn out that Jimenez was never given the official appointment papers in the first place.

Malacañang, though, now likes to claim that Jimenez no longer goes to the Palace. Whether he is no longer tight with the President, however, remains very debatable, despite a favorite presidential son’s pronouncements in August that Jimenez is a “con artist” who “has deceived a lot of people,” and who was already out of the President’s circle of pals. After all, that declaration had been followed by a paternal tongue-lashing, and the son was forced to issue a retraction and apology soon after. Weeks later, Jimenez would be seen hobnobbing with the First Family as one of the selected guests at the exclusive despedida de soltera for Estrada’s daughter Jackie.

Jimenez himself isn’t about to say he is no longer a presidential friend. In fact, for a man described by many as a big talker, he doesn’t say much, at least to reporters, even those who are ushered in by his butler at his South Forbes mansion. Then again, that may be an inexact description of Jimenez during i’s two-session interview—for a total of seven hours—with him. It is true that the big, dark and balding Jimenez refused to respond to many questions. But he did talk, if only to insult the reporter for “asking those kinds of questions” or to say, “No comment.” Correction: He also did talk at length on a variety of topics, but he would wind up the mini monologues with a gruff “off the record.”

Fortunately, there are already some things that are on the record elsewhere, and these may help de-myth the man described as the one person who can effectively shake the present power totem at the Palace, who seems to be involved in almost every business mega-deal in town, and who is so lucky he managed to win P140 million at the Casino Pavilion in a span of just five days.

MARK JIMENEZ was born Mario Batacan Crespo on December 31, 1946 in Paco, Manila, where his parents owned a grocery store. As a young boy, he would filch food from the family pantry to give to his impoverished friends, just like what Joseph Ejercito used to do with his friends in the squatter areas in San Juan.

His religious upbringing gave him the idea of becoming a priest. He entered the San Carlos Seminary in Makati but lasted only two years because he was always hungry. The rest of his education, from elementary to college, was courtesy of the Ateneo de Manila University, but he dropped out in 1967 before earning a bachelor’s degree.

An article by Riza Regis, a relative, in the Sunday Inquirer, portrays the post-Ateneo Jimenez—then still known as Crespo—as enterprising, distributing softdrinks, and selling heavy equipment, computers and even sacks of copra. But he may have been more than a plain buy-and-sell businessman. According to an estafa case filed by Teodoro Pleno of Globe-Mackay Cable and Radio Corporation in 1983, Mario Crespo was president of Atrium Airfreight, which was engaged in the brokerage business.

In his counter-affidavit, however, Crespo, then a resident of the middle-class United Parañaque subdivision, said he was “not and has never been president” of Atrium Airfreight.

The case stemmed from Crespo’s alleged falsification of the signatures of two Bureau of Customs (BoC) officials in documents authorizing Citibank to collect from the importer Globe-MacKay the amount of P1,781,421 for customs duties and taxes. Pleno accused Crespo of faking the payee’s name in the Citibank check by typing “Citibank N.A.” and Crespo’s bank account number. Pleno said the check was intended for Citibank N.N. He added that Crespo then withdrew all of the P1,781,421, but paid the BoC only P609,633.

Crespo denied all these, saying that the procedure he followed was the agreed working arrangement. The case was later dismissed, but by then, Crespo had already gone to the United States, leaving behind his family and creditors. Some people who knew him then said he eloped with pretty college student Carol Castañeda, now his wife and mother of three of his 11 children.

Regis’s account reveals that it had not always been easy for Crespo/Jimenez. “I’ve seen how his family fortunes have bounced up and down like a ball,” she wrote, “with a brand new furniture and expensive cars at one point and borrowed gas at another.”

Nevertheless, according to Sunday Inquirer reader Raffy Garcia of Lian, Batangas, Crespo/Jimenez is someone who doesn’t shirk from his responsibilities. Garcia said that “as soon as his financial situation improved (in the United States), he immediately sent for his children from his first family. He sent them to the best schools. He also sent lawyers to track down all of his creditors, and he paid them all.”

By then, he had already changed his name to Mark Jimenez, and had become a millionaire many times over. Regis says it was not always so. “During his early years there,” she wrote, “he faced the kind of financial uncertainty that besets most newcomers trying to establish a life in a strange land. He spent most of his time hanging out in the lobbies of five-star hotels, where he “held office” and met all kinds of people. Those acquaintances eventually led him to business opportunities, the biggest of which was meeting the need for computers in Latin America.”

Jimenez made his fortune in computers, starting with learning the business in California’s Silicon Valley. Then in 1988, he founded Future Tech International (FTI), a computer distribution company based in Miami, with extensive reach in Latin America. International Business Online said FTI’s gameplan was simple: approach high-tech manufacturers that have no presence in the region, negotiate exclusive distribution rights, and then sell and support their products with a sophistication rare in Latin America.

FTI carried the products of companies like Quantum, Maxtor, Canon, NEC, AMD, Hitachi and MarkVision, another Jimenez firm. Starting out as a small computer components distributor, Future Tech now rakes in average annual revenues of $400 million. It is ranked 327th among the top 500 computer businesses in the United States.

The Florida court indictment papers say Jimenez set up several layers of companies as well. He created Mark Vision Holdings Inc., with headquarters in the British Virgin Islands, to conduct the same business that FTI used to do in some South American countries. He also set up two MVH subsidiaries in Uruguay: MarkVision International, Inc., and Mark Vision Zona Franca. Court documents also mention Kalisol, S.A., an Uruguay-based marketing firm purportedly owned by a Jimenez in-law, but which was allegedly controlled by Jimenez. Kalisol, along with FTI, would later figure prominently in the U.S. extradition papers on Jimenez.