Senate sources told The STAR yesterday that the President’s emissaries have been insistently prodding the popular senator, also known as Kabayan, to attend the opening ceremonies of the ongoing 18th Philippine Advertising Congress so he and Mrs. Arroyo can meet.
They said the President was even willing to send the presidential plane to fetch De Castro wherever he was and fly him to Baguio.
"But Kabayan did not want to talk to the President under those circumstances. He did not want to be seen as a hostage by some interest groups," one of the sources said.
"Your page one photo yesterday might as well have included Noli had he agreed to be there," he added.
The sources were referring to the photograph of the President whose hand was raised by Eugenio "Gabby" Lopez III, chairman of the giant ABS-CBN television and radio network who chairs the 18th Ad Congress, as if to proclaim her as a winner or as his candidate.
There are also reports that the Lopezes, some of whose businesses are facing financial difficulties and problems with the government, are brokering an Arroyo-De Castro tandem.
Gabby Lopez is De Castro’s boss at ABS-CBN, where he still has his "Magandang Gabi Bayan" television program.
The ABS-CBN delegates to the ad congress wanted their popular colleague to attend at least the opening ceremonies since he brings in a lot of advertising for the network.
De Castro has said Gabby Lopez can influence him when it comes to his "Magandang Gabi Bayan" program but not on politics.
Sen. Ralph Recto, a colleague of De Castro in the "Group of 5" in the Senate, agrees.
"Noli is his own man. Nobody owns him. It is unfair to speculate that he is a talent that can be traded or put on the auction bloc. We must disabuse ourselves of the notion that he is another man’s marionette," Recto said.
He added that if De Castro seeks a higher office, "it will be for nothing else but to be, to borrow the slogan of his home studio, ‘in the service of the Filipino.’"
Mrs. Arroyo’s political strategists and allies in the ruling Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats party have been desperately trying to get De Castro to take the vice presidential slot in the administration ticket in the May 2004 elections primarily to eliminate him in the presidential race.
The broadcaster-turned-senator has topped several past surveys of presidential and vice presidential wannabes.
De Castro himself admitted on Tuesday that Mrs. Arroyo’s emissaries have become insistent in pleading that he meet with her.
He said he has been rejecting their pleas because he has not yet made a decision whether to run for president or vice president or not to run at all.
De Castro said if he decides to seek a higher office, he also does not know yet under what political group — whether the administration or opposition.
He can also run as an independent supported by various political groups, he added.
But De Castro said he would soon meet with Mrs. Arroyo, possibly next week.
"Sinong makakatanggi sa Pangulo? Pangulo natin yan. Out of respect for her office man lang, I will meet with her," he said.
Sen. Edgardo Angara, who heads the opposition Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, had wanted De Castro to join the nomination process for the opposition presidential standard- bearer.
But Angara told reporters that he gets the sense that they have lost his colleague to the administration side.
Opposition sources said monetary offers and other concessions are being dangled before De Castro.