CEBU CITY ? Mark Herras used to be afraid of jail cells.

?I had a bad experience in the past,? he explains. ?My [biological] father was jailed because of drugs when I was young.?

But the original ?Starstruck? winner now has a different perspective of prison after he was tapped to share the limelight with the world-famous Cebu Dancing Inmates in a pre-taped segment of the opening number of last Sunday?s ?Party Pilipinas.?

The GMA 7 variety show was held in the Visayan city as part of its ongoing provincial road tour.

Mark recalled that the dance number with the inmates was taped Friday, two days before the actual show that was held at the Cebu International Convention Center.

Production insiders revealed that the inmates? portion was pre-taped because they cannot dance on Sundays and they follow a strict, regimented schedule.

?The minute I arrived in prison, we went straight to work,? Mark related.

Consummate pros

To their credit, the prisoners were consummate pros, Mark said. ?They were disciplined. They knew their steps. We only had to learn our blocking and we finished the taping in an hour.?

He admitted learning a lot from the Cebu experience.

?Alhough they?re convicts, they can still change and make their lives better,? Mark said of the Dancing Inmates. ?They told me that the original dancers who became famous on YouTube have already been released from jail.?

He said that some of the inmates he danced with on Sunday are set to be freed in six months.?

He calls his stint in prison as a ?once-in-a-lifetime? opportunity.

Two weeks before the Cebu trip, he had a health scare backstage during the ?Party Pilipinas? show held at the SMX Convention Center ? the grand launch of the summer caravan. ?I couldn?t breathe and had heart palpitations. But it was just fatigue,? he said.

After a good day?s rest, he was back in fighting form, preparing for the Dagupan episode of ?Party Pilipinas? which was held the week before Cebu.

He rehearsed Friday, motored to Dagupan on Saturday night and practiced again on Sunday, only hours before the show.

?It?s common for me to learn the steps right before a show,? he said.

Fortunately, dancing is second nature to the so-called ?Bad Boy of the Dancefloor.?

After Dagupan and Cebu, next stops for ?Party Pilipinas? are Davao and Antipolo, Rizal.

E-mail: bayanisandiego@hotmail.com