APO ON THE WALL

As I’ve read the poem entitled Apo on the Wall, I know in the first place that it
was about the time of Ferdinand Marcos, so it gave me the feeling of excitement for I
am an enthusiast in reading something about the Philippine history. So, let’s talk about
the poem. It was all about how ruthless and influential Marcos was. A young boy which
is the narrator has a soldier father, which brings home a photo of his boss whom he
called Apo and hangs it on the wall. The thing I like about the poem is it stated a verity.
It made me reminisced what the time of Marcos was like and his Martial Law does to the
people. I think all of us are ascertain about it. It just makes me take a peek from the
past, seizing the good and bad part of it; how people were affrighted and some even
become insurgent. I sympathized to those people who experienced the abusive nature
of authority in the military. It is like the people being shackled in their own homeland,
feeling terrified on every triple things they do. It makes me feel proud of the success of
our entire country in the revolution. Reflecting on what Martial Law was like, the poem
Apo on the Wall is something that connects to our life. How it affects the people and
what damage it did to the Philippines way back Ferdinand Marcos’ reign. The poem has
a boy that is the narrator, who’s afraid of his father because of his snappiness and
loyalty to his boss, Apo, founder of Martial Law who can order him not- so-good things.
It symbolize to some youth that they have no good relationship to their father. Just like
the persona’s father, teenagers nowadays don’t follow the policies their father had
enforced at home. The poem reflects for two reasons, first we need to follow the rules of
our dear fathers for our own sake, second, its connection to the history of Martial Law.
When you reflect it into reality among the situations of teenagers nowadays, we can
observe that when our fathers look at us eye to eye, we easily get scared for some
reason, and we tend to follow them to avoid being reprimanded. And this poem also has
a relation to the Martial Law.