Dance instructor jailed for ‘extorting’ P750K from widow

MANILA, Philippines —A dance instructor’s plan of gliding back to his hometown in style went awry when he was arrested late Tuesday night in an entrapment operation for allegedly extorting P750,000 from a 60-year-old widow in Quezon City.

Reno Terez, 43, of Alson Street in Barangay (village) North Fairview, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he was only asking for help from his former regular customer Erlinda Nejal, of the Neopolitan Subdivision in Fairview and denied he was blackmailing her.

According to reports from the Quezon City Police District Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (QCPD-CIDU), Terez was arrested at around 9:30 p.m., Tuesday, along Commonwealth Avenue in North Fairview where he was scheduled to meet with Nejal for the money.

His arrest stemmed from Nejal’s complaint that Terez tried on Tuesday morning to blackmail her into giving him P750,000. The amount, Nejal claimed, was to ensure that he would not spread rumors about what was supposed to be their previous intimate relationship.

Nejal was able to haggle down the price to just P250,000 and set a meeting with him several hours after he allegedly demanded the money. The widow immediately sought the help of the police who set up the entrapment operation using boodle money. As soon as the exchange was completed, the QCPD-CIDU personnel pounced on Terez.

“I was desperate. I needed the money so I could go back home,” Terez told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, referring to his hometown in Misamis Occidental.

He said that Nejal replaced him as her dance instructor a month ago and that he had not been faring well financially since. They had been dance partners, he said, for five years. “I have not had a decent meal since she (Nejal) suddenly replaced me. All I was asking from her was help,” he explained.

Terez told the Inquirer that he was not thinking clearly when he wrote and sent her a note asking for P750,000. “I was just asking for help so I could settle down and maybe I mentioned something about our closeness but I never intended to blackmail her,” he maintained.

Asked why he needed the large amount of money, he said that he had a family in the province and would have settled for even P50,000.

Terez remains detained at the QCPD-CIDU holding cell and is facing an extortion charge in the city prosecutor’s office.