I asked my friend, whom we affectionately call The Mayor (because he is running for Mayor over there) the timeline and if Efren was over here earlier than 1985. He is pretty sure he was, but said he would ask. All he remembers is that Efren went to jail back then because his backer reported him to Immigration.
He also states that Efren would never dump to anyone. The only player from the Philipines with that reputation he says, is Parica. The other players value their managers and they know if they got that reputation, then they would lose their managers. He said they all play from the heart and always try to win.
Those days of even needing a manager may be in the past for Parica. He gave his wife $95,000 to save and she invested it in real estate (not sure whether in CA or the Philipines) and made $20-30 million from it. She gave him a Mercedes and a lot of cash to gamble with (casinos and pool) and he went through it too fast, so she took the Mercedes away and put him on an allowance. (Luat told me once that whatever they win, their wives get the bulk to manage the household. I like that idea!) Parica told Mike that he is probably the richest pool player in the world.
My friend attended Efren's son's wedding in March. A derivative of Efren's name, his son is called Frennie. Efren also has 2 daughters. Frennie plays just below Efren's speed, because he has always had money and never needed it to live on his earnings. Instead, he was always fat from Efren's winnings, lol.