This is the present day Manila Metropolitan Theater, an abandoned cultural and historical faade just some walking distance from Manila Post Office. The theater was once a glitzy venue for plays, cultural shows, beauty pageants, concerts and variety shows including Vilma Santos' bygone musical-variety show in GMA-7. Designed by Filipino architect, Juan Arellano, the theater was built in the early 1930's but was severely damaged during World War II. It was reconstructed but subsequently descended to abandonment. Standing along one of Manila's busiest highway, Manila Metropolitan Theater consequently is a lonely edifice hanging down and low as if waiting for demolition. To every passing jeepneys, taxis,
buses and pedestrians, the theater is a prominent sight and it is one of my favorite markers or indicators tipping me off that I am closer to the place where I am usually staying every time I am in Manila. There's nothing else that I am so hopeful - that one day the Manila Metropolitan Theater will again be as dazzling as it was. With all its glorious and glittery past, I hope not, that in days ahead the theater will be gone to fragments and forever close its doors. What really went wrong? Where all those lights had gone?
This is the present day Manila Metropolitan Theater, an abandoned cultural and historical faade just some walking distance from Manila Post Office. The theater was once a glitzy venue for plays, cultural shows, beauty pageants, concerts and variety shows including Vilma Santos' bygone musical-variety show in GMA-7. Designed by Filipino architect, Juan Arellano, the theater was built in the early 1930's but was severely damaged during World War II. It was reconstructed but subsequently descended to abandonment. Standing along one of Manila's busiest highway, Manila Metropolitan Theater consequently is a lonely edifice hanging down and low as if waiting for demolition. 
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