SBS shows the documentary Dateline every Wednesday night. I managed to see this past Wednesday's edition - the first one I've seen for a long long time.
Among the stories featured was "Jailhouse Rock", which featured the prison inmates of the maximum security prison in Cebu, an island in the Philippines. Most of the men there had violent criminal histories & are among the most dangerous criminals in the Philippines. However, there's 1 thing unusual about these inmates - they perform synchronised dance routines every day. It's not the sort of thing that one would associate with maximum security prioners. But it's true - the prisoners do the synchronised dancing daily. And they seem to love it!
The person responsible for introducing all that dancing is Byron Garcia, the Cebu prison's overseer. He was actually the security adviser for the Cebu provincial government - his sister, Gwen Garcia, is the Governor of the Cebu province & she gave him that job. Upon his appointment, the first thing he did was to clean up the Cebu prison. He made sweeping changes, which included getting rid of the corrupt prison guards, changing of the prison security program whereby different guard report to different commanders & also closer monitoring of visitors to the prison. He also isolated prison gang leaders from the rest of the prisoners, so no more trouble can be stirred inside the prison. Then one day, when he observed the prisoners marching, he came up with the idea of intoducing music & dance to the prisoners. So there you are - the prisoners of Cebu are now really into the synchronised dancing. Every day, they would do various dance rehearsals (which looked quite difficult) & exercises in harmony with the music that was playing. There's even a prison choreographer to look after all the dancing!
When I saw all that, I laughed. It was hilarious watching a bunch of prison inmates dancing here & there. It's certainly very unusual. But hey, they're all happy & they really like it. As a result of Byron Garcia's sweeping changes (capped off by the synchronised dancing), the Cebu prison is a much happier place - no more fights, no more argument between inmates, all get along with each other & all seem to live in peace & harmony. What the prisoners are doing is apparently making headlines in the province & the country, & is gaining such popularity that there's talk of the President of the Philippines visiting to watch their dance performance! Byron Garcia thinks the prisoners are happy being in the Cebu jail, & as both the Dateline reporter & Garcia agreed at the end of the story, perhaps it's the happiest prison in the world.
One other thing I should mention - some of the Cebu inmates are Christians! Yay! Those inmates who are Christians hold daily evangelistic-style church service, & it's often packed. It seems Byron Garcia is also behind all this - he's got one of the prisoners, an ex-cop named Leo, helping him out introduce system of discipline that is based on Christian principles. Leo is one of the service leaders for the Christian prisoners. As a Christian, I'm encouraged by the sight of the Christian prisoners singing & giving praises to God. I saw Leo say the following prayer (something along these lines): "God, we ask that the hindrances in our hearts, sinful & evil, be washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. When you are in jail, the world thinks that you are bad. We want to show the world that it is not too late to change".
Very heartening indeed. It reminds me of God's love & grace for humans, that He would sacrifice His Son Jesus to pay the price of sin that humans were meant to pay for. Jesus died (& was later resurrected) for everyone, including myself & those Cebu prisoners. Watching the Christian prisoners reminds me that salvation can never be beyond anyone who truly want to repent from their sins, no matter how grave the sins they have committed. That's certainly the case with those Christian prisoners - one day, I will get to meet them in heaven :)
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