Andre Salazar Is Worried (For Andre Salazar)

By Mikael Rizada-Borres

What is an underrated aspect of Andre Salazar that you want advertised? Like, “Ay, let’s put this on the brochure. Wala lagi gi-highlight, noh [It’s not being highlighted, no]?"

After listening to this question, Andre Salazar closed his eyes and chuckled, pressing the knuckles of his left hand against the space between his eyes. He contemplated his answer for at least five seconds.

“It’s something my… you know, my past… relationships always said kay [because] — Ay! Oh, my God.” Andre then paused, laughing a bit harder while he hesitated to share what he really thought. He pondered again for 10 seconds more.

“It’s very cringy for me to say this, Kael,” he continued. 

He then mustered up the resolve to share what he wanted to say.

"If I say that I’m a good kisser, I’m gonna say that?! Immediately?!” Andre asked, wanting to perish the thought of him proclaiming he was a good kisser at rapid speed.

“I am just getting it from those people [his ex-lovers],” he said. "I’m not stating it na mura’g [as if] I’m so proud of it, pero [but] I’m just basing it on other people, on what they have said before.”

When Andre was asked about what the people who have kissed him before would say about his kissing skills, he said: “Kana lang… Maayo daw ko mu…chula.”

(That’s it… They say I’m good at… making out.)

“Oh my God... I’m saying this in an interview,” said Andre, who then let out a soft chuckle again.

I cannot corroborate whether Andre is good “muchala” (at making out). I am also unwilling to make out with Andre for the sake of journalistic research, and I am sure Andre feels the same way.

In between his major responsibilities, like the presidency of the University of San Carlos’ Supreme Student Council (SSC) and the vice presidency for External Affairs for the Network of Warriors for Mental Health (NOW-MH), Andre can get loose. In some cases, he gets more loose than usual. For example, Andre and I – as well as SSC Vice President Erna Cabarrubias – had this exchange during our interview for a special Today’s Carolinian features series on the SSC officers:

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Mikael: What is the biggest misconception about you that… you’re like, “That’s not Andre”?

Andre: To be honest, Kael… it’s something people always say about me. Although it’s not true, they say I’m a “fuckboy” or a “ghoster”... something like that.

Erna: True.

Mikael: Hala, ‘true’ daw! (Look, she said it was true!)

Andre: Huy, Erns! Ayaw sad pag in-ana uy! (Hey, Erns! Don’t be like that, too!)

- - -

Andre’s looseness, however, is often contrasted – if not overshadowed – by his worries about how people perceive him. He imposes onto himself a policy of carefulness to preserve a positive public image of himself. When the Today’s Carolinian article of him and Erna was released, Andre talked to me via Messenger, joking (with a tinge of regret in his tone) about how his confessions to me were funny to him. He then texted me: “People are chatting napud [as well], but oh well.”

He neither acts with his vanity as the prime motive nor tries to control his own narrative. He just wants to make himself feel secure. Albeit he enjoys the widened social connections from the roles he plays, he can’t help but reminisce of the days of relative anonymity. “I was a really private person,” he recalled, noting how his thoughts and opinions were only consumed by a small group of friends. “Before, Kael, on Twitter, I would really express everything, anything. Like Grade 9? Grade 10, I think? When I was in junior high, I really did express myself. If you go back to my tweets, I’d tweet randomly.”

Andre no longer has that privilege of anonymity. Whatever he does will be scrutinized by the Carolinian peanut gallery and a student journalist/bounty hunter who’ll track any of his mistakes down, step by step from town to town. “Whenever I go out and party, Kael, I’m like, ‘Oh, my God! If people see me drinking and partying, will they think of me as a president nga sigi la’g inum [who always drinks]? Because there really were friends who said that. ’Unsa man ni na presidente, uy? Sigi’g inum [What kind of president is this? Always drinking].’”

“Karon [now], it’s always a question of, ‘Oh, my God! What would happen if I did something like this? How will people see this?’ ‘Cause there’s always considerations because it will affect myself, the Council itself, everything. So, in terms of how I present myself compared to before, it’s really different.”

“I can’t help but think more about them – the stories about me – when someone comments about them,” said Andre.

He not only thinks about those comments — he admits that he overthinks about them. He maps up possible paths of where his choices could lead him to. And oftentimes, the destinations of those paths are more akin to some version of personal social dystopia. Hence, he keeps to himself details he is wary of sharing or prefers to wag his tongue when the Zoom recording is turned off. In the case that he does tell me something intimate, he tells about the details in vague encryptions to leave names and other specifics off the record, preventing any creation of offence.

But Andre does try to explain himself. When it comes to the “fuckboy who ghosts girls” label his friends and those who know Andre would say, he refutes them by first acknowledging that he did ghost those who liked him. (Back in his high school years, he would first make moves on a girl but gets exhausted going through the ways of love afterwards. Eventually, he would leave the other person dry.) After conceding, he would be firm in his convictions and declare that he does not ghost women anymore, repeating the point that he is currently “committed” to a woman as of the date of the interview. 

(“Committed,” in Andre’s case, does not mean he’s in a relationship with a woman. What he means is that he’s laser-focused on courting the woman he likes.)

But every time Andre spins the stories about him, the peanut gallery circles the stories back to him. When the stories do circle back to Andre, they always come with added skepticism from those who doubt Andre’s motives and capabilities. “I even hear my friends say, ‘Dre, unsa’y nimo makuha sa SSC diay? Di man mu tagaan ani, ana.”

(I even hear my friends say, “Dre, what do you even get from being in the SSC? You guys don’t get anything.”)

“Personally, I get offended when I get questions like that,” Andre continued, “because being a student leader or being a servant leader should never be questioned because you place yourself there because you want to serve.” To him, getting asked what kickbacks he gets from playing the roles he wants to play made him see the cynicism that surrounds his genuineness. 

“I really want to help,” said Andre, who would respond in kind to the cynics who are puzzled by his motivations. “It sounds like I’m joking. It sounds like I’m being pilosopo [sarcastic], but that’s really the first thing I’ll say, and they laugh.

“They’re like, ‘Ay, Dre, tinuod ba. Pagtarung ba.’”

(Ay, Dre, tell the truth. Be serious.)

But the thing is that even when Andre really is being serious and telling the truth, the cynics’ narrative for Andre Salazar always wins. Andre cannot win; even if he wants to win, he doesn’t have the time to succeed in that goal. 

At the time of our conversation, Andre told me about how he was finding it hard to manage his stints in school, his social life, and his private affairs. And despite being someone who considers himself a mental health advocate, Andre does confess that he finds flaws in his endeavour to demonstrate his advocacy through his personal life. “When I deal with problems, I first deal with them on my own,” he said. When the problem comes into view, he processes it alone so that only he can help himself resolve it. 

He does reach out to others when he cannot fix the issue alone, but he finds it “challenging” to seek out the help he desires since he believes that others might find it “burdensome” for them to join in finding the resolution to the problem. He noted how his hesitations seem to conflict with his beliefs in mental health. 

But the imperfections of his advocacy form the authenticity of his championing of mental health conversations and support. Such imperfections manifested themselves when schools started to conduct online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I guess, Kael, during the pandemic, I didn’t really know who I was,” said Andre. “ I had a lot of time being here at home, getting my own time, the “Me” time — it’s something I usually don’t have. So, during those times, muingun ko nga [I would say], ‘Who is Andre? Who is Andre if you strip off the leadership role? If you strip off the academic achievements that he has accomplished, who is Andre?’

“The way I kept asking myself that, it made me anxious,” Andre continued, who would then contemplate thoughts like “Oh, my God! I’m this person” and “Maybe, if this happened, I would not be successful in the future.” Overthinking was the name of the game Andre was playing, and he played it all too well. 

And the game, when played well, made him feel moody and stagnant and made him wonder how he could continue. On many days during the early months of the pandemic, he’d confine himself to his bedroom, only leaving it to grab a meal. “Although I didn’t have any diagnosis on that, like a professional diagnosis, I thought I was really depressed.”

When left to his own devices, Andre paid heavy prices and practiced minuscule vices, which led to him ending up in a lockdown crisis. 

But, in time, the crisis became something that Andre could escape when his friend – inadvertently or not – guided Andre out of the crisis. The friend encouraged Andre to join several mental health-related webinars. He then remembered how the speakers and mentors who were part of those webinars’ panels made a deep impression on him as he listened to their presentations. “Muingun ko nga [I would say], ‘Ay, yeah. That’s something I felt. That’s something I really went through,” said Andre. As he continued to participate in more webinars, then founded organizations like NOW-MH, Andre now has the privilege of knowing more about himself through his newfound advocacy – all the good, the bad, and the ugly.

He will always remember the new journey because someone was there for him. When Andre was getting crushed by the boulders of anxiety and worrying, his friend came to push those boulders off Andre. With that experience came an understanding that Andre has confidants willing to cope with him. “Makaingun ko nga [I can say] I guess I’m blessed and grateful enough to have a very good support system,” said Andre. “I am just grateful that people are there for me when I need something. When I’m feeling down, I always have someone to talk to.

“It was such a good thing that the friend who really invited me to get into those webinars,” Andre said with a smile. “Until now, he’s still helping me, and I’m very thankful for him.”

He hopes to be that support system for those who may be trekking through a transition from the journey of crisis to healing and self-compassion. He then has had to grasp the unfortunate reality that others do not have and may not have the same trajectory as him, often thinking about how those who neither have the support system nor resources he has. “Every mental health initiative I do, I always ask the question, ‘How can this help those people dealing with their problems on their own, who do not have that support system that I do?”

On a more personal note, Andre still finds it hard to reach out and process the problems he’s facing, knowing that he only holds a limited amount of time to deal with his self-doubt. It’s a quandary he cannot solve, though it’s a quandary he’s willing to work on.

 “It’s still a question I’m trying to figure out right now,” said Andre.

Ande and Mikael conducted the interview through Zoom on Saturday, September 10, 2022.

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