Everything becomes a story for Noreen Capili. Everything.  The thirtysomething writer has lived an eventful life that’s been transmuted into funny, insightful stories—and that’s just as Noringai, the nom de plume she uses in her popular blog and best-selling collection of essays, “Parang Kayo Pero Hindi.”

 

As Noreen Capili, she has written hundreds of episodes for several TV series—you’ve probably seen one or two.

 

Noreen Besmar Capili is the youngest of four siblings born to the late businessman Celestino Capili and homemaker Editha, in Parang, Maguindanao.  The armed conflict in Maguindanao in the 1980s forced the Capili family to relocate to Davao, where this young writer grew up.

 

After high school at the Assumption School of Davao, Capili decamped to Manila where she took up Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman. What followed was a series of jobs, starting with an unsuccessfully stint as a realtor. “I didn’t sell a single house or lot,” she confesses.

 

Among her early jobs was as regular advice columnist for the healthy lifestyle magazine Lifeline. Only 22 then, Capili read relationship books and relied on common sense to answer the anguished letters of lovestruck readers.

 

“I was only in my twenties then, what did I know?” she recalls in a mix of Filipino and English—which is also how she writes. “What I gave them were options. I didn’t tell them what to do; they had to choose the answer for themselves.”

 

It was as web editor for a maritime company in 2006 that Capili began attending workshops on comedy writing at ABS-CBN.  Reluctant to let go of her day job, she went on leave every Monday to attend for three months the workshop then led by veteran TV and movie director Jose Javier “Joey” Reyes. “He handpicked me to write for sitcoms,” Capili remembers.

 

Writing for the screen had long been a dream for Capili. Having watched Reyes’ movies “May Minamahal” and “Pare Ko,” she longed for the same kind of creative work. “I want to see my name on TV and for people to say, ‘hey, it’s Noreen Capili! She was my classmate!’ My dream was as simple as that.”

 

Now writing for one of the country’s biggest networks, Capili cut her teeth on the weekly romance series “Your Song” in 2006 and moved her way up the writing ladder. She wound up writing the series “Idol” (2010), the Jessy Mendiola-starrer “Sabel” and  “My Binondo Girl,” which starred Kim Chiu, among many others.

 

Most recently, Capili wrote the mermaid telenovela “Aryana” featuring Ella Cruz, and 30 episodes of the series “Wansapanataym.” Coming up later this year is the Julia Barretto vehicle, “Mira Bella.”

 

In 2007, Capili took the plunge. “I quit my day job,” she says. Everyone was against her decision.  The company she had worked for made a counter-offer with double the pay and a managerial position, but she had made up her mind. “It was really a risk. But this was what I really wanted to do, write for TV,” she says. “You can’t serve two masters. I prayed for it for a long time. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.” Today, she writes full-time for ABS-CBN.

 

It wasn’t the only writing she had been doing.  She started a popular blog (noringai.blogspot.com) in 2001. “I was bored at work,” she says of writing technical manuals for a telecommunications company. “It was an outlet. Everyday, because I had free Internet, I would just blog,” she says. At the start, she was delighted with the anonymity it offered. “Writing a blog at that time was great. It was like walking around naked with your head covered. They only knew me as ‘Noringai,’” a name her friends in college friends had made up.

 

Her blog proved an effective training ground for writing both drama and comedy for local TV.  In her blog, Capili drew on both the side-splitting laughter and the silence-inducing sadness of her own and her friends’ experiences. As Noringai, she gained a loyal following, which also followed her column for the site Peyups.com.

 

Despite the anonymity, she recalls being surprised when some readers recognized her while she was waiting for a jeep in Makati. “Strangers were keeping track of my updates,” she says in amazement. It seems that Filipinos love romance and that’s what drew people to Capili’s blog. “I’m a senti (sentimental) person. The Pinoy is really romantic,” she says. She recounts that when she still had an actual love life and would blog about it, the hits would increase.  Over time, she realized that her readers were yuppies, people in college, young Filipinos.

 

In January 2011, Capili had a medical crisis that would change her life.  “I almost died,” she says, adding that the stressful pace of her job, her drinking and smoking must have contributed to it.

 

Not knowing she had hypertension, she found herself reeling from a severe headache that made her throw up.  Initially, she thought it was the result of too much partying over the holidays. But when the headache persisted, she dialed her head writer who lived in the same building to tell him about it.

 

 

 

Her boss thought she was just making up an excuse to miss her deadline, but when the pain brought on tears, he decided to bring her to a nearby hospital. At the emergency room, Capili fell into a coma for three days. When she woke up, she was told of her ruptured aneurysm and the need for surgery.  After being operated on, she has since fully recovered and now lives a much healthier lifestyle.

 

That brush with mortality triggered something in Capili. “I worried that I didn’t have enough time,” she recalls. “Aside from seeing my name on the screen, one of my dreams was to have my own book. If it didn’t find a publisher, I was ready to self-publish, print a hundred copies and give them to my friends just so I can say ‘I’m a published author.’ ”

 

It was then that she started putting together the short essays from her blog and Peyups.com column.  She had initially approached a publisher but received no response, until she mustered enough courage to consider Anvil Publishing and submit her manuscript in 2013. To her delight, she received a positive response, with Anvil’s publishing manager Karina Bolasco asking for more stuff.

 

Flooded with over a hundred essays from Capili, Anvil decided to split her prodigious output into two books. The first, “Parang Kayo Pero Hindi,” came out in September, climbed National Book Store’s best-seller list and went into its third printing recently.

 

Covering about 10 years of Capili’s life, the essays are brief but bright, offering an honest take on everything from the food she had ordered to more provocative incidents. “I changed some of the details,” she admits, “to protect the privacy of some people.”

 

The best essays are those dealing with some aspect of the  contemporary dating scene in the Philippines, such as the titular essay. Refreshingly straightforward but loaded with punch lines and points to reflect on, Capili’s essays provide a closer look into the life of a modern Filipino woman living on her own.

 

In his introduction, Capili’s mentor, Jose Javier Reyes, describes her work as “extraordinary because these writings carry humor with quiet pain.”

 

Beverly “Bebang” Siy, the author of the best-selling autobiographical book “It’s a Men’s World,” gets the charm. “Napaka-friendly ng wika niya. (It’s an) easy read. And her descriptions of her feelings about love and relationships are very realistic.”

 

She adds:  “I can relate because the essays are easy to understand.”

 

Anvil Publishing marketing manager Gwenn Galvez says Capili’s title alone grabs the reader. “Her title is very intriguing.  It appeals to women of all ages as it deals with relationships of a romantic nature. The title also uses a very contemporary phrase ‘parang kayo’ referring to a couple or people in relationships.”

 

Additionally, Siy’s and Capili’s books speak of a strong following for tell-all books written by strong Filipino women. Siy says Capili gets the context and so do the readers. “Gets agad kami ng readers, kasi we are one with them,” agrees Siy.

 

Galvez says there is a big audience for this type of books.  “They are targeted toward young female readers who are avid consumers of romance books. The sales figures attest to the enormity of this segment of the reading public. Women readers derive pleasure and encouragement from semi-biographical literature because they can relate to the stories that are usually aspirational or confessional.”

 

Siy says single women and “those searching for a relationship,” are a particular market.  She describes Capili’s book as “self-help… that also makes for an enjoyable read.”  She adds: “In a way, the book is inspiring and enlightening without being preachy.  It’s like talking to an older sister who’s very understanding and saying ‘papunta ka pa lang, pabalik na ako’  (I’ve been there)  in a very, very sweet manner.”

 

Capili is more self-effacing about her book. “Surreal,” is how she describes her experience as an author, adding that she still remembers the first time someone asked her to autograph her book at a book-signing event at the Manila International Book Fair.  When she saw her book on the shelves for the first time, she actually took a photo with her phone, she confides.

 

Her next book, “Buti Pa Ang Roma May Papa” is due out later this year. But that’s not all she’s been busy with.

 

Capili actually has a third dream: to write a movie. She’s getting that chance as well, with her own book, no less. When “Parang Kayo Pero Hindi” became a publishing hit, broadcast executives and directors approached her for a possible screen adaptation. “I thought they were just joking,” she says. But when Star Cinema, ABS-CBN’s movie arm, entered the scene, she took the offer seriously.  With Capili herself writing the screenplay, “Parang Kayo Pero Hindi” the movie is coming out late this year.

 

The book’s imminent arrival at local cinemas is only the latest in a series of book-to-movie transformations. Beginning with Eros Atalia’s “Ligo Na Ü, Lapit na Me” in 2011, a conga line of books about Filipino lives has seen their adaptation into movies, including Ramon Bautista’s “Bakit Hindi Ka Crush ng Crush Mo?” in 2013. Out this month from Viva is Bob Ong’s “ABNKKBSNPLAko?!” starring Jericho Rosales. Soon to follow is HaveYouSeenThisGirl’s “Diary Ng Panget.”

 

Galvez says these movies have a built-in audience because the readers are bound to watch the movie version: “There’s always an audience for films that have been previously read.  Young readers like to see their favorite artists give life to stories that capture their imagination. Young females are also a significant sector of movie watchers.”

 

Given the deluge of writing jobs that await her, does Capili still find time to do other stuff?  What does she do when she’s not writing?  “Tumunganga (space out),” she quips.

 

Not that she’s getting a lot of time to do that, as writing for TV takes up a lot of her time now when she’s not walking the malls, shopping or listening to good music.

 

Ironically for a writer who has become known for writing about love, Capili says her own love life which used to be “colorful,” is now “non-existent,” with potential partners “probably scared off.”

 

She adds: “I used to tell people my love life was like a book or a movie, an indie film in 2012. Now I want a love life that’s a romantic comedy instead.”

 

Not that she has reason to complain. Writing for TV, authoring a book and writing a movie screenplay is not for the fainthearted, but it’s something she has already achieved.

 

Recalls Capili: “One of my friends asked: now that I have all three,  could I die now? And I said, not yet!” •