MANILA, Philippines -- The Cebu jailbirds who spawned a worldwide Internet hit with their version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video will recreate their dance as a tribute to the dead star, according to a television news report.

The performance will be held today inside the provincial jail in Cebu, GMA 7 reported, quoting Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center officials.

“Thriller,” a global hit on YouTube, shows 1,400 inmates wearing saffron prison uniforms performing their own version of one of Jackson’s most famous hits.

News of the star’s death at the age of 50, apparently from a cardiac arrest at his Los Angeles home, is weighing heavily on the prison dancers, the station said on its website.

Crisanto Niere, a balding, gap-toothed drug dealer who impersonated Jackson in the YouTube dance, “is sad his idol died,” the station quoted an unnamed prison official as saying.

Cebu prison officials had introduced dance as a way of improving physical fitness and to relieve stress among inmates.

The four-minute video of the original prison dance has so far generated more than 23 million hits on YouTube.