CNN

The Internet has spawned some unlikely stars –- but few more improbable than Wenjiell Resane.

An accused methamphetamine dealer and self-described "she-male," she shares a single prison cell with a dozen transsexuals in a high-security jail in Cebu, the Philippines' second city.

She has been waiting three years for trial. It was a living death until it was bizarrely interrupted by a combination of YouTube and an unconventional prison overseer.

Wenjiell is the star of "Thriller" -– a video reworking of the Michael Jackson classic as performed by more than a thousand inmates of Cebu's Provincial Rehabilitation Center.

In the past year, it has accrued some six million hits on YouTube.

"I tried being a performer before but no-one took any notice," Wenjiell tells me with the mock bashfulness of the practiced celebrity. "Now, in jail, I have become a star."

The Michael Jackson role is performed with flair by 36-year-old Crisanto Niere, an accused crack dealer who has been waiting five years for trial.

He loves the dancing and laughs at his unlikely fame but says the video has brought him a reward he once thought would be forever beyond his reach. His son Christopher only knows him as a prison inmate.

"He used to be so ashamed of me," says Niere. "Now when he goes to school he tells everyone the dancer on the Internet is his father."

Sixteen men share Niere's tiny cell, doubling up on hardboard bunks. A photograph of Christopher in school uniform takes pride of place on the wall.

"It makes me proud that my son is proud of me," says Niere quietly.

Cebu's most notorious prison stands fittingly on Justice Street just down the road from "Beverly Hills."

Philippine justice moves so slowly that simply to be charged can feel like a life sentence. Most of the inmates are hardcore suspects, facing murder, rape, robbery and serious drugs offences.

Three years ago the jail was infamous for its drug culture and the corruption of its guards.

The new prison overseer, Byron Garcia, 47, took a gamble, calculating that compulsory marching exercises to music might help break the gang leaders' hold. It worked. Choreography followed.

"These men learned they can dance and still be men," he says. "It makes them work together, it makes them exercise and they learn self-esteem.

"They no longer feel like lowly criminals." A smile breaks his face. "Now," he says, "they feel like celebrity criminals."

Before the dance sessions, serious violence broke out at least once a week. "For one year and four months," says Garcia, "there has not been a single violent act ... they are just not hostile anymore."

Garcia admits he videotaped the "Thriller" performance and uploaded it himself onto the Internet. He believes the lessons he has learnt at his jail can be applied everywhere.

"I had to ignore everything in the handbooks to do this," he says. "People in the United States tell me it couldn't work in their prisons," he shrugs. How can they know without trying it?

Garcia himself has a hardline pedigree in law and order. His father, Congressman Pablo Garcia, introduced the death penalty to the Philippines in the 1980s.

Many of his inmates could yet be sentenced to death if they ever make it to trial. But accused mass-murderer Leo Suico tells me dancing means "we don’t think of bad things."

He says the experience has taught him "love" -– pure and simple. He blinks back tears.

Today, at 6 a.m., 1,500 inmates began rehearsing their next act -– a thank you and acknowledgement to their Internet audience. It is the 1980s hit "Electric Dreams," chosen by Byron Garcia.

"These people are behind prison bars," he says. "But with the Internet we all CAN be together in electric dreams."

-- From Hugh Riminton, CNN International Anchor/Correspondent