 It was during his stay at the De La Salle when he won his first literary award from the university's annual awards for literature--"Solitude" bagged third place in the English poetry category.He was also an art staff of a university news publication "The La Sallian".A few years after graduating, Vergara joined the university's theater organization, the Harlequin Theater Guild, where he acted in productions of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", Susan Glaspell's "Trifles", Agatha Christie's "Towards Zero", and Wilfrido Ma.