PRESIDENT Arroyo yesterday ordered the National Commission on Culture and the Arts and the Manila city government to speed up the restoration of the Metropolitan Theatre in Manila.

She gave the order to Commission Executive Director Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, who is also presidential adviser on culture and the arts, and Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim after inspecting the building.

“Upon your directive we will [expedite] the restoration,” Alvarez told the President.

She said work on the theater would be finished on time to host Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day, and that it would have a soft launching for the 68th anniversary of Philippine-Korean Friendship Day in June.

The theater would be fully operational in December, Alvarez said.

Mrs. Arroyo gave P50 million to start restoring the building, and the next P50 million would complete it, she said.

The theater started falling apart in 1996 as a result of the dispute between the Manila city government and the Government Service Insurance System over who owned it and who should run it.

The theater was built in the art deco style and completed in 1931, and soon it became a favorite place for staging musicals, operas, zarzuelas and other entertainment fare.

The Americans restored the building after it was destroyed during the liberation of Manila in 1945, but it fell into disuse in the 1960s. Roy Pelovello