Happy Jail

Madam Speaker, I rise today...

on a matter concerning the great province of Cebu--

the sad and sorry state

of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Allow me to refresh your memories of the CPDRC experience.

Under my watch as governor,

the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center

became a world-class facility.

After their performance of Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

on YouTube in 2007,

our inmates became famous as Cebu's Dancing Inmates.

Right. Go.

A source of collective pride for our people.

But more than the pride it brought the Philippines...

it is what the experience meant to each inmate that truly mattered.

Because it meant... redemption.

Here we are, nine years after the CPDRC

shot to global fame.

Much has changed since Hilario Davide III

became governor and appointed Marco Toral consultant on jail management.

Marco Toral is an ex-convict out on appeal.

Davide's justification was that he has experience.

Seriously?

How quickly we have descended from a real-life Jailhouse Rock

to hitting rock-bottom.

How has it come to this?

Child of the sun returning

With fervor burning Thee do our souls adore

Land dear and holy, cradle of noble heroes

Ne'er shall invaders

Trample thy sacred shores

My name is Marco Toral.

And I'm the Consultant for Jail Management

at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.

Yes, it is only in this jail

that you see the tower shorter than the fence.

Usually, it's on top of the fence, right? So this one is, like,

shorter than the fence.

I was an inmate myself and I became a consultant for the inmates.

Just your picture!

First thing in my mind was to help the inmates.

You can never take care of them if you don't know what you're doing.

Like if you haven't been to jail,

you're not gonna do even one percent of what I'm doing.

That's what my philosophy is.

Like, you can't guard the jail if you're not an inmate.

That's my sniffing dog over there.

It's a Dutch Shepherd.

To be able to understand, you know, the inmates,

you have to be hands-on.

So this is Tony.

He's a... welder.

He's making a trailer right now.

But you're happy.

I'm happy.

We're trying our very best to uplift the inmates.

We don't look at jail as, you know, something bad.

So why don't we make it like a...

happy jail for happy inmates?

I'll repeat it for the last time. Where are the dancers for "Summertime"?

I'm the original choreographer of the "Thriller."

It may be inborn for me to dance.

Because three years old, I'm dancing, and elementary, I'm dancing.

And high school... Maybe one year in high school I dance.

Now, I'm proud to be a professional choreographer.

This is my passion. This is my path.

So maybe it's God's will.

Before I start here,

I'm so very scared.

1,500 inmates!

They throw slippers at me.

They say, "Fuck you!"

Months after, the inmates in their cells

are practicing in the morning.

They're happy and they're dancing anywhere,

in the cell, in the quadrangle.

They love it so.

Welcome to the new Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center,

the home of the world-famous Dancing Inmates.

Hi! Good afternoon. This way.

Visitors are now coming from other countries to see...

the monthly performance open to the public.

Thank you for coming! Come again.

Dancing Inmates! Yeah!

Play!

My name is Marlon Maloloyon,

twenty-four,

from Cordova, Cebu.

I started to dance at 14 years old at home.

I am a lead dancer in here.

Dancing Inmates...

I see them in YouTube.

We're known worldwide.

I thought, one day, maybe I could dance here.

Then it happened!

I'm a licensed massage therapist...

in outside.

But now...

I'm a licensed prisoner.

Licensed prisoner.

When you go to other jail,

you can't see dancing. Only here.

I see happy people face when...

when they watch us dancing.

We give happiness to them.

Sometimes I feel-- It feels like,

"Wow! We're celebrity."

Yeah, but just for a while.

Good morning, fellow inmates!

Just stay there!

What?

No more! The warden is not here.

My job here is to oversee the daily operation of the center.

I've been in this job for 34 years.

It's a big job.

There is a lot of changes since Marco took over.

The governor trusts him.

The governor have lots of confidence in Sir Marco.

Junjun

Junjun

This is Junjun

Governor's wife was my classmate, So he's my good friend.

When I got out of jail,

I was in the campaign, you know, campaigning for Gov.

And when the campaign was over and we knew that Junjun was going to win,

he told me, "Hey, Marc! I'm gonna hire you."

I said, "What?"

"So you're the guy who came from prison. You take over the provincial jail."

I told Gov., "I have a very, very colorful past.

But whatever you want me to do, I'm gonna do it."

I think Governor is very-- a brilliant guy.

Congresswoman...

- Call me Gwen. - Gwen Garcia.

A lot of people wonder,

in fact, wish for you to run again for governor.

A lot of people miss those nine years when Cebu was fabulous.

If you were to rate the incumbent Governor Davide

on a scale of one to ten...

- It would have to be a three. - Oh, my gosh!

You know, you have a governor insisting that he's doing the right thing,

but why would you hire an ex-convict?

He was out on appeal.

He was supposed to serve a life sentence, even.

The CDPRC has become a source of shame.

This is under the supervision of the governor.

It has never happened under my watch.

I see my fellow Cebuanos and, you know, they come to me.

They're crying and they say, "Please! Please!

Please go back to being governor."

I handle Inmate Welfare Development Program.

I take care of what the inmates need.

Like their cases, what we can do with their cases.

Like, if they had a problem,

they come up to me and tell me about their problem.

Usually, their problem is about their wife leaving them

or not visiting them.

For those things, you know, it's hard.

So I help them with the boredom or the hopelessness they feel inside.

You don't treat them like animals, you know...

being inside those cells.

On our first day of work, they were telling us

that there were lots of monkey business inside the jail.

So I told them,

"Okay, we're going to put a table in front of the quadrangle.

Surrender all deadly weapons you have inside."

So that's what they did.

We had lots of deadly weapons, like those sticks,

knives-- The long knives...

Knives made out of bone.

Everybody surrendered their deadly weapon.

They were asking, "What the fuck?

How does this guy know we have deadly weapon inside?"

So, don't ask me.

And then I said,

"I came from jail. Yeah.

We're the same."

And then I showed them my gang tattoo.

Yeah, you don't get a tattoo like this just anywhere.

You only get that tattoo when you're inside.

We're all like brothers inside, yeah.

Yeah, so that's when we started working.

Most of our inmates are detainees. They're not actually prisoners.

Their cases are being heard in court.

At CPDRC, everyone is innocent until they get convicted.

All inmates who get convicted of their crime

are sent to the maximum-security prison in Muntinlupa.

We got lots of overstaying inmates, like, 14 years inside,

and the maximum they have for their crime is, like, four years only.

Unless they get convicted, they're still with us.

Yeah, the female inmates have their own section of the jail.

We are all only 36 female inmates in 2007.

In 2014, 100 female inmates.

And now, there's like 200 of them in, like, six cells.

Oh, man! It's overcrowded.

When we have new inmates, girl...

They are not allowed to leave their cells for one month.

After one month, I ask them, "What do you remember of our rules?"

If they are able to recall them, then they are already allowed to go out.

If not, they can't go outside.

If you let them be badass, there will be trouble.