By Nick Tayag | Photos courtesy of the NCCA “We step into the gloried past even as we take a step towards a radiant future.” That’s how National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Chairman Arsenio “Nick” J. Lizaso encapsulates his manifold feelings about the imminent opening of the newly restored Manila Metropolitan Theater, which has recently been announced to the public. Standing on Padre Burgos Avenue corner Arroceros Street, near the Manila Central Post Office, the MET is a 1930s art deco building that in its heyday before World War II was the center of the arts and culture, or what was then called “high society.”