Profile: Mario Crespo alias Mark Jimenez

By Joan Dairo GMANews.TV "Corporate genius" Mark Jimenez was former President Joseph Estrada’s adviser on Latin American affairs, one of the first new positions that the ousted leader created to accommodate "friends" who pushed his presidential campaign in 1998. Jimenez, Estrada’s classmate at the Ateneo de Manila University, first returned to the Philippines from the United States months before the 1998 presidential elections. Early on, Jimenez made a fortune in America by cornering contracts to sell and distribute computers in Latin America. By many accounts, Jimenez bought his way to Estrada’s heart. In exchange for supposedly contributing tens of millions of pesos in campaign money, Jimenez secured the trust and confidence of the former president. In the Estrada corridors of power back then, it was said that Jimenez mastered the tricks of humoring an ill-tempered president who bawls out even members of his Cabinet. Jimenez, it was reported, lavished Estrada and his family members with gifts, and occasionally conceded poker matches to please the former movie actor. Dubious monikers In time, Jimenez earned the dubious moniker of being "the president’s fixer" who delivered "better" results than most other "close" allies like Robert Aventajado, (erstwhile secretary for flagship projects), the Zamora brothers Ronaldo and Manuel (former executive secretary and mining magnate, respectively) and Ilocos Sur Gov. Chavit Singson. Soon, more appellations would be attached to Jimenez’s name. He was also called Estrada’s "M&A (mergers & acquisition) artist" for playing broker to a major management revamp of two of the country's largest corporations, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Philippine Airlines (PAL). The PLDT transaction in 1999 involved the buyout of the country’s biggest telecommunication firm by Manuel V. Pangilinan, executive chairman of First Pacific, the Hong Kong-arm of Indonesia's Salim Group. PLDT chief Antonio "Tonyboy" Cojuangco was initially reluctant to sell his PLDT rights. It was reportedly on Jimenez’s prodding that he agreed to the sale. In the end, Pangilinan paid $750 million for 17.2% of PLDT common stock – or P1,427 a share. For his role in brokering the deal, uncorroborated reports said Jimenez pocketed $50 million in commission. His close friends had repeatedly denied, however, that Jimenez collected a fat fee from the deal. A bank, a paper A second transaction that involved Jimenez was Equitable Bank’s takeover of the much bigger PCIBank, using money from state pension funds -- the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Social Security System (SSS). Jimenez soon took over, albeit briefly, The Manila Times newspaper, which published a story about his and Estrada’s role in the purportedly anomalous $470-million hydroelectric power contract between the government and Argentine firm IMPSA (Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima). In July 1999, the Gokongwei family, owners of the Manila Times, eventually sold the newspaper to Jimenez, in the face of a P100-million libel suit and tremendous political pressure from the Estrada government. After Estrada was ousted by the second people power revolt, Jimenez ran and won as congressman for the sixth district of Manila in May 2001. The House Electoral Tribunal eventually unseated Jimenez in 2002 for alleged vote-buying. It was at this point that he suffered a reversal of fortune. Jailed in US Jimenez was convicted on Nov. 14, 2003, in Miami, Florida, after he pleaded guilty to charges of election conspiracy and tax evasion, while working as a businessman in America. He was indicted in the US in April 1999, but he contested his extradition up to the Supreme Court, which soon junked Jimenez’s challenge in September 2002. In December 2002 he offered "voluntary" extradition and left the country. Back in the US, Jimenez served 22 months of his 27-month sentence in jail. Apart from serving time, the US court ordered him to pay a fine of $1.2 million. At the close of his jail term, Jimenez returned to Manila on December 19 last year, and forthwith announced his decision to lead a life of quiet and prayer. Back in limelight In recent weeks though, Jimenez bounced back to public life and hogged the news with his supposedly charitable donation of P20 million for the plan holders of cash-strapped Pacific Assurance Plans. In full view of the cameras, he turned over a check for P20 million – even as early on he pledged to actually give the plan holders P50 million – but only after nudging other wealthy Filipinos to follow his lead. Too, Jimenez has offered to donate P200,000 each to the families of journalists who had been murdered. To one and all, Jimenez has telegraphed a studied plan to run for mayor of Manila in the May 2007 elections. Witness vs Erap On Wednesday at the Sandiganbayan, Jimenez showed up for Estrada’s eighth visit to the witness stand. He said he would testify against his former classmate because he wanted Estrada to "suffer what I suffered when I was in jail in the United States." Interviewed after his cross-examination, Estrada said he earned the ire of Jimenez after rejecting P40 million in kickbacks in exchange for the approval of the Impsa deal. The Impsa project, Estrada purportedly told Jimenez at that time, was disadvantageous to the public and the government. During a privilege speech at the House of Representatives, then Congressman Jimenez bared that the Impsa deal was approved three days after President Arroyo was sworn in as Estrada’s successor in Jan. 20, 2001. Jimenez claimed that he gave a total of $11 million in kickbacks to the alleged levers of power in the Arroyo government. According to Jimenez, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo got $4 million, former Justice Secretary Hernando “Nani" Perez $2 million, about $1 million was split among Napocor insiders, while the remaining $4 million could not be accounted for. A checkered past Mario Batacan Crespo, now known as Mark Jimenez, was born on December 31, 1946 in Paco, Manila. In 1983, he was accused of estafa by a partner in an airfreight business. He was then already in the United States. In 1988, he founded Future Tech International (FTI), a computer distribution company based in Miami, with extensive reach in Latin America. The FTI gameplan was to approach high-tech manufacturers that had no presence in the region, negotiate exclusive distribution rights, and then sell and support their products with 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 at one time posted average annual revenues of $400 million. The Florida court indictment papers said 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 mentioned Kalisol, S.A., a 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 US extradition papers on Jimenez. Jimenez has claimed he was part of a small group of Bill Clinton believers at a time when many were not giving the young Arkansas governor much chance to clinch the presidency. While Florida court records said his contributions to the 1995 Clinton/Gore reelection campaign was only $25,000, the Associated Press cited US Secret Service records showing that Jimenez was invited to the White House 12 times between 1994 and 1996. Apart from the Clintons, Jimenez had boasted that he is also a close friend of 17 Latin American heads of state.-GMANews.TV/GMA News Research