Once more with feeling, GMA wants to curb temper

Pobably for the nth time, President Arroyo again wishes that for the coming year, she would not have so short a fuse.

The President is in Baguio City for her family’s traditional holiday retreat. When asked by reporters yesterday about her New Year’s resolution, she said she would want to "work" on her temper.

Reporters covering the President asked if her previous efforts had been unsuccessful. She said she would succeed only for a short while, but "like all resolutions and wishes, (I tend to) break it."

The President in known to be a "Taray Queen," a moniker for women who flare up easily. Recently, she even picked on the media and asked members to shed their "bad boy" image.

But most of her officials vowed the President had mellowed and even some reporters attested to such change in attitude.

And while she was not displaying her bad temper in public anymore, the President shunned media interviews at the height of her political crisis. It was only recently that she became open to media again.

If her resolution is old hat, what’s new and definitely noticeable is her hairstyle.

According to the President’s fashion coordinator Joanne Zapanta-Andrada, Mrs. Arroyo’s new hairstyle was courtesy of famous French hairdresser Franck Provost.

Provost’s salons are among the upscale ones in Metro Manila, which also offer training for those who want to enter into the parlor business or become hairdressers.

In an e-mail to The STAR, Zapanta said Provost arrived in Manila from Paris last week to inspect his salons here.

"Baby Cruz, owner of the local franchises (of Frank Provost salons) asked me if GMA (the President’s initials) could see Mr. Provost for a few minutes while he was in town," Zapanta said.

"The few minutes were enough for a quick cut and style as it turns out!" she added.

The President reiterated that her other wishes for the New Year would be improve the government’s frontline services by cutting red tape and making the people more aware of the jobs and opportunities for them.

Mrs. Arroyo said there were many jobs available as posted at the website of the Department of Labor and Employment but people hardly knew about them.

She explained that posting advertisements at Internet cafes and at malls about these jobs was an example of government streamlining.