Where in the world can you find “dancing inmates”? Only in the Philippines , or more specifically only in Cebu . The whole concept of discipline and dancing as methods of rehabilitation has never been in the books. It deviates and does not conform to the principles of jail management and penology. But a son of a political scion transcended from his political and landlord roots to do “the very least for his brethren» – turn dregs into human beings.

Byron Garcia – son of former Cebu Governor Pablo Garcia and brother of now Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia – could easily have pursued a comfortable corporate career being a management graduate. But he chose to be with the thugs of society, he chose to be with the dangerous men of society and he chose to be in a thankless and demeaning job where his relatives thought it was such a crazy thing to do. What moved him into this mission?

Byron was catapulted to international fame when he made 1,500 inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Videos of the dance and exercise routines that he uploaded on YouTube has since had 70 million hits over the past two years and over 40,000 subscribers. The dancing inmates concept also brought in international networks like CNN, BBC and magazines like TIME and NEWSWEEK dispatch their crew and correspondents to the Philippines and then to the mountains of Cebu to actually see “dancing inmates.” The CPDRC is precariously located at the mountains of Cebu City . Byron was also awarded as one of Cebu’s Ten Outstanding Men because of his unique concept in jail management and rehabilitation.

Closing in to seal your doom.

Why Thriller? Byron was assigned as Capitol security Consultant when his sister Gwen assumed office as governor in 2004. Byron had enough background on security because he put up his own security and detective agency before his present job. But to manage a jail was completely a different minefield. “The jail is a living hell,” was how he described the nature of his job. It was in “this living hell” that Byron found the crusade in his life. Lyrics of the rap refrain from Rod Temperton’s song Thriller which was sang and  performed  by Michael Jackson reads;

«The foulest stench is in the air

The funk of forty thousand years

And grizzly ghouls from every tomb

Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive

Your body starts to shiver

For no mere mortal can resist

The evil of the thriller.”

According to Byron, whether inside or outside the jail, people in this world seal their own tomb and are closing in their own doom by foul and decadent cultures in a society. Nobody can get away from this doom in life for as long as they don’t stay away from “the evil of the thriller” or from the evils of sin. The “living hell” in jails is about corruption, violence, gang culture, culture of the insane, culture of deceit and betrayal. “If someone wants to see hell on Earth, if someone wants to come face to face with the grizzly ghouls from immortal tombs, one only has to visit the jails,” Byron would say.

Rehabilitation is not rehabilitation when it is anchored on punitive action. Byron believes that rehabilitation has to be anchored on compassion so that a sinner can be separated from the sin, so the degenerate from the culture and humanity be regenerated into the humane.

«Rehabilitation has to be anchored on bringing out the best in men instead of the worst in men», Byron says. Certain that his new concept of Rehabilitation in jails is effective,  Byron is confident that its impact would eventually spill over into a rehabilitated society. If rehabilitation is ineffective in jails, then any society into which hardened criminals are released and re-integrated, seals itself and closes in on its doom. «If we make jails a living hell for these inmates, then we might just be turning out devils once they are released» Byron says!

With this unique perspective in mind, Byron took on the daunting and seemingly impossible task of completely revolutionizing  jail culture.

With an entirely new hypothesis to penology, on the onset of his crusade, nobody believed him. So he proceeded to hone another medium of rehabilitation other than hard core discipline – dance. As Byron believed it to be, music and dance provided inmates with an outlet to break loose their depression, self-pity and restive spirits – Music and dance became a positive medium to unleash negative pent up emotions and frustrations.

Lyrics of the song “Thriller” perfectly described the “living hell” and “evils in the jail” and the choreography that came with the dance is an expression of the realities of the evils of society and jails.

There’s the irony – jails were supposed to be built as a deterrence. Jails or cages were built for wild animals so that they would be tamed. Jails or cages were also built for wild people so that they would not be in harm’s way from people. The idea of creating cages for people was originally thought of to keep misfits and uncontrollable people away from trouble. It took decades before rehabilitation became part of jail management. But even rehabilitation became a misnomer in itself when jails in the country became highly punitive.

Breaking Loose.

The message of this site carries that of hope. By sharing this new concept of rehabilitation, Byron hopes to provide an instrument for society’s redemption from the seal of doom and to become an inspiration for replication not just in jails but other areas of society as well.

Byron believes that it is not vain hope  that his concept of rehabilitation will eventually be applied internationally and thus stop the decadence, violence and corruption in a society by giving a strong warning that the only way for peace to reign in this world and to win the «fight to stay alive» is to break away from the “funk of forty thousand years” and the «grizzly ghouls from every tomb». If not, we’ll be closing in our doom!

We mortals must resist the «Evil of the Thriller».