Beginning in 1993, Vergara spent almost a decade working in public relations and corporate communications as a staff writer, photographer, graphic designer, and on occasion, special events host.
[3] Though reviews to his professional debut were mostly lukewarm to negative,[citation needed] Vergara continued his acting training with the New Voice Company.
He subsequently performed in the independently produced productions of David Gobeil Taylor's Waiting for Homo and Anton Chekhov's The Boor.
His first foray into self-publishing was in 2001, when he produced, wrote and illustrated One Night in Purgatory,[6][7][8] a short comics tale about homosexual love.
[9] The graphic novel earned recognition from the Manila Critics Circle in 2003, thus giving Vergara his first National Book Award.
In the nominees list of the 30th Gawad Urian (an award-giving body composed on film critics), Vergara was cited along with Dinno Erece in the screenplay category.
Vergara wrote the one-act play Kung Paano Ako Naging Leading Lady (How I Became Leading Lady),[11] which was accepted and presented in June 2013 during the 9th Virgin LabFest, a festival of new theatre material, organized by The Tanghalang Pilipino Foundation and The Writer's Bloc, Inc. A comics adaptation of the play, illustrated by Elmer Cantada, was released in November 2013.