CPDRC Sinulog with Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia

The Sinulog festival is one of the grandest and most colorful festivals in the Philippines. The main festival is held each year on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City to honor the Santo Niño, or the child Jesus, who used to be the patron saint of the whole province of Cebu. It is essentially a dance ritual which remembers the Filipino people’s past and their acceptance of Christianity.

The festival features some the country’s most colorful displays of pomp and pageantry: participants garbed in bright-colored costumes dance to the rhythm of drums, trumpets and native gongs. The streets are usually lined with vendors and pedestrians all wanting to witness the street-dancing. Smaller versions of the festival are also held in various parts of the province, also to celebrate and honor theSanto Niño. There is also a Sinulog sa Kabataan, which is performed by the youths of Cebu a week before the Grand Parade.

Saturday, January 19, 2008
CPDRC draws tourists, locals for performance meant for annual grand parade
By Minerva B. Gerodias
Sun.Star Staff Reporter

FOREIGNERS, balikbayans and locals were impressed by the famous dancing inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC), who performed for over an hour inside the four walls of the prison yesterday.

The inmates performed their own version of the Sinulog, as well as several other dances in three shows, which each drew 200 guests.

They ended up dancing inside the CPDRC after Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, the Cebu City Government and the Sinulog Foundation Inc. decided not to allow them to perform in the annual grand parade due to security reasons.Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, who is at odds with Osmeña, respected the decision of the organizers and decided to just bring in the tourists and locals to the CPDRC.

The inmates performed at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Even with the heat of the sun, the inmates were still all smiles as they performed more than a dozen dances. Aside from the Sinulog, they also performed their version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Their Thriller dance was uploaded over YouTube last year by Capitol consultant on security Byron Garcia and it caught the attention of millions of viewers from all over the world. It landed in the top five of the Top 10 Most Watchable Videos of Time Magazine and the inmates have also been featured in several international television networks, like CNN and BBC.

Wendell Cuyos, a balikbayan from Saudi Arabia, had mixed emotions while watching the inmates perform. “It was really an outstanding performance, yet heartbreaking. We are very proud as Cebuanos, pero naluoy as well,” he said (We also felt sorry for them).

“It was very entertaining. Not Broadway but of very high standards. I had reservations at first. Would the inmates feel like performing seals? But they all seemed to enjoy themselves,” Geoffrey Markwick, a tourist from England, said.

“Having worked in theater, I am aware of the sense of achievement that comes from a good show. They are proud of their success,” Markwick added.

A group of Norwegian students who are in Cebu for a school project was among the spectators at the CPDRC yesterday. “Very impressive,” Mia Olsem said, adding that she had seen over the Internet a video of the inmates’ performance. Elma, a balikbayan, and her Swedish husband Ulf Krantz were also impressed with the performance of the inmates. Elma said her husband really wanted to see the inmates perform live as they also saw their video over the Internet.

Grace Vetsch, also a balikbayan who watched with her Swiss husband Joerg Ulrich during the morning show, said she was so overwhelmed that she almost cried while watching the inmates dance.“I see hope, I see souls being saved. I see an anointed leader,” she said.

Former Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Cebu president Manuel Monzon, who watched with his sister and relatives, was also impressed.“Fantastic,” he exclaimed, adding that he was so touched with the inmates’ ability to perform well despite their life in jail. He said the discipline that has been instilled in these inmates is obvious with the way they danced.

Maki Garcia Evans, daughter of Honorary Consul to Russia Armi Garcia and Sun.Star Publishing Inc. president Jesus Garcia Jr., also watched with her husband and she admitted that she almost cried while watching the inmates. “I feel so honored and humbled by this experience. It is so uplifting and encouraging,” she said.

Evans said that with the discipline instilled in the inmates and with their becoming celebrities, it will not be hard for them to join the society again and they will “not be stuck with the stigma of being inmates.”

Finale number from the Sinulog Special performed by the CPDRC inmates on January 18, 2008.