SBS’s Dateline program last night broadcast The Happiest Prison, a short feature by Nick Lazaredes about the Philippines’ Cebu Prison, which recently entered the public consciousness after its warden, Byron Garcia, posted a number of clips on YouTube of the prisoners taking part in mass choreographed dancing to some of the worst hits of the 80s, 90s and Today. The program presented the prison in a positive light and hailed the dance program as a worthwhile diversion from traditional prison activities like drug use and gang warfare. But is everything as peachy keen as appeared on the screen?

Sydney journalist Adam Jasper visited a number of Filipino prisons earlier this year, and he told a very different story to Crikey last night. He says that the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Centre was one of the most disturbing prisons he saw, mainly because the man running it – whose family nepotistically runs Cebu province and has extensive ties to organised crime – treats the prison as his own private fiefdom and the prisoners as puppets to act out his obsession with music and dance. In comparison with inmates in other Filipino prisons, who were proud, he found the inmates at Cebu to be “frightened and craven”. And while the social system is similar to other prisons, instead of cell leaders being elected democratically by their peers, only ex-military and police have positions of power at Cebu.

Jasper obviously made an impression on Garcia. Lazaredes says that Garcia was critical of the other Australian journalist who had visited and said he hadn’t stayed long enough to get an accurate impression. When Jasper posted a comment on one of Garcia’s YouTube videos he received the only reply. Garcia said, “I remember the spotty Australian. I think he had AIDS.”

Lazaredes told Crikey that while his story wasn’t the most earth-shattering in the world, he doesn’t believe he was fed a line by Garcia: “I’m fairly aware when I’m being lied to or set up … I’m aware when a show is being put on for you. I came away every day with such a different impression … At first I was suspicious that the inmates there were being forced to do something that they didn’t really want to do, perhaps there was some pressure being put on them to do this dancing, but that simply wasn’t the case.”

Jasper is more cynical: he doesn’t believe it’s possible to know whether the image the prison projects while journalists are visiting is an accurate representation of what actually goes on. A Filipino news report on the program shows Garcia admitting to initial difficulty in convincing his inmates to dance: “These prisoners were all hard-headed. So, well we, we, did some, ya know, uh, some disciplinary measures.” Another YouTube video  alleges torture is common and that the prisoners are forced to practise at least 12 hours a day. Jasper doesn’t know who is behind this video, but he believes it is somebody with connections to people at Cebu.

While Lazaredes was concerned by the nepotistic nature of Garcia’s appointment, he didn’t feel that – in a country in which nepotism and corruption is rife – the negative outweighed the positive effect of Garcia’s changes. As to whether Garcia’s intentions in setting up the program were born of compassion or a desire to fulfil a personal obsession, Lazaredes says: “In many ways he’s stumbled across this, if it had been another prison guard who had been interested in basketball or something, it may have been that something else had been implemented. While it’s something that he has happened upon, it works.”

Prominent prisoners rights advocate Kay Danes generally agreed with the prison’s activities: “As an International Human Rights advocate we are constantly advocating for greater transparency of prisons, particularly Asian prisons where human rights violations are prevalent. So to that regard, the video does provide transparency.”

Jasper disagrees: “When you have all of these people [dancing] how would you know from watching the video if one disappears?”

As to whether the dance program violates the human rights of the prisoners, Danes said, “I would say that in any prison system a prisoner is expected to participate in some form of work related programs. In many Asian prisons, these are not volunteer programs and there are consequences for prisoners who refuse to participate … It also presents an opportunity for a prisoner to perhaps show relatives watching that they are in fact, still alive … Prisoner’s rights are violated everyday and few people care about that. I don’t particularly see this as a serious human rights violation or even a violation when you compare it to the many civil and legal rights that are violated everyday in prisons.”

The Happiest Prison will be re-broadcast on SBS today at 2.30pm and on Sunday at 11am. It can be viewed online through the SBS website.