Tens of millions of views, tens of thousands of comments, posted, shared, and liked by hundreds to thousands of people all across the globe – this is something that you don’t expect to be accomplished by a bunch of prison inmates.

But these prisoners are no ordinary inmates!

Some of them may be innocent, while some may be guilty – guilty of being a good dancer! Meet the CPDRC Dancing Inmates.

Behind bars, surrounded by thick walls, and electrocuting barb wires, this is where prison inmates are living their lives. The Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) is a maximum-security prison in Cebu Province, in Western Visayas, Philippines.

They gained popularity when they incorporated their exercise routine with flash mob dancing.

They eventually became online celebrities.

Their best YouTube hit was when they danced to one of Michael Jackson’s hit songs, “Thriller” back in 2007.

Since then, they made a couple of more dances and kept on sharing it on the world wide web. The people loved the idea, thus making them widely known not only in the Philippines but all around the world. Because of the tremendous growth of their fan base, they were called CPDRC Dancing Inmates.

Then something unexpected came up.

The CPDRC Dancing Inmates were all over news channels in the Philippines and also abroad.

The once called “happy jail” turned out to be just an ordinary detention center for law-violators.

There were gang hierarchies, corruption, and violence- these facts inside the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center overshadowed the CPDRC Dancing Inmates’ fame.

Some human rights experts even called the forced dance performances “exploitative.” Sadly, public performances and uploads ceased in 2010, although dance remains part of the inmates’ exercise and rehabilitation program.

Going back to their best dance hit rendition of “Thriller.”

The dance routine became known worldwide with more than 59 million views on YouTube. Not to mention the other social media platforms that showcased their amazing flash mob performance.

Byron F. Garcia, the official security advisor to the Cebu government was the mastermind behind the dance programs of the dancing inmates.

He made a YouTube channel and uploaded all the dance routines of the CPDRC Dancing Inmates.

When the prison became famous for its viral dance videos, they began inviting visitors to view the exercise routines in exchange for donations.

Unfortunately, Garcia and other officers are no longer employed at the prison after questions arose about the donations received from those attending public performances.

Their dances became so popular that they were even visited by Michael Jackson’s long-time choreographer, Travis Payne, and dancers Daniel Celebre and Dres Reid in 2009 to learn dances from Jackson’s This Is It album.

One particular routine that probably made a great impact on the inmates was their “They Don’t Care About Us” performance.

It’s a song that’s likely to have punched a hole in their hearts because some of them have been waiting in jail for years without a decent court trial. While some of them may have already been forgotten and no longer visited by their loved ones.

Although some prison officials belittled the efforts and saw an upcoming disaster dance performance, the CPDRC Dancing Inmates proved them wrong.

The routine went smooth as silk and became another huge hit in the cyberspace.

Their “They Don’t Care About Us” dance video was uploaded on YouTube and got a whopping 36.3 million views!

The video hit some of the viewer’s right in their hearts.

One even commented:

“Am I the only one who got the chills because of the message when prison inmates dance to ‘they don’t care about us’?

What’s making their videos viral?

We can’t deny that a group of dancing prison inmates is indeed an eye-catcher. But there’s more to these dancing inmates than meets the eye?

Although the dances are part of their exercise and rehabilitation routine, we can see that most (if not all) of them are enjoying what they are doing. They are having a lot of fun while dancing, don’t you think so?

The feared law-violators tossed away the public’s impression towards them and used that to capitalize their dancing skills to prove their critics wrong.

At the end of the day, despite all the circumstances, they just wanted to be a part of something good.

If you want to see more of the inmates’ dance routines, you may visit Byron F. Garcia’s YouTube channel.

Don’t miss the CPDRC Dancing Inmates’ epic performance of “They Don’t Care About Us” in the video below.

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Source: SEE IT LIVE, byronfgarcia, SonyPicturesDVD