Apo on the wall

Apo on the wall talks about the martial law era and it depicts the situations and their experiences during those times, especially that it is in a child’s point of view. Even though we are not that fond of reading martial law articles, we still appreciate and it impresses us because of how differently written it especially in a poem form and a child’s perspective. We would say that people are well disciplined those days and have high regard towards the authorities and gets even scared to those authorities. Similar to this written poem, you can notice the child’s father is always busy and working hard inside his office even though his boss, named Apo, is not around and is obviously stated that his boss’ picture is only hanged on the wall behind him witnessing the father’s hard work. We can compare this to our parents, we tend to get easily scared and follow their orders even though they’re not around to avoid being reprimanded because they’re still the most powerful for us. which is this situation, is also similar to martial law.

I liked the poem because it talks about the martial law era particularly a child’s perspective, it is kind of unique compared to other poems, because this poem will give us a better understanding about the martial law with a point of view of a child. They said a child’s perspective is way too different from adult’s. On this poem, it is clearly stated that martial law is where the people are disciplined and a scary time for them. Considering that the child is elaborating what is really happening in our country is rare especially to an innocent child.

I realize that those days or the past will always remind us that many Filipinos struggled in the hands of Ferdinand Marcos. This will give us insights to appreciate our present because we didn’t experience that kind of brutal play behind the curtains of discipline, this means that we have to look back in the past in order for us to learn it and apply it on the present. Appreciate also what happens on the past to avoid another mistakes in our present times.