Velez: Skywalker teaches us a history lesson

STAR Wars fans are not happy with the Rise of Skywalker. They were expecting a Kylo versus Rey saga. Instead, they got a creepy old villain, long thought dead, coming out of nowhere to claim he is behind all the evil that is happening in the new trilogy. They don't like that.

This is just like activists who are battling this present administration for perpetrating extrajudicial killings and plunder of our resources, only to find out there's a more sinister plan, as the dead dictator's family is creeping back to power.

Just like Palpatine, they have machines, like online trolls to keep this memory of a "Golden Age in Philippine History" alive. They have money too, to run this new order. They have power to overturn their cases.

Just like Palpatine too, the old surviving ruler looks creepy.

All along we thought our battle is between Dilawan versus DDS. Maybe it's not that at all. Maybe it's this old regime all along breathing its evil in our country: corruption, patronage politics, fascism, poverty. The dead speaks. And they want to rewrite history.

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This latest Star Wars trilogy is actually about learning from history and how to fight forward.

In The Last Jedi, Luke was an old warrior afraid of his past failures. Rey was the aggressive young student, eager to learn from the past to be able to fight.

It is true our history is a history of missed opportunities. But it is also a history of brave people who fought the dictatorship because of their love for freedom.

The young people of today can learn from the history of activism in the First Quarter Storm of 1970 and how activists survive and fight during Martial Law and see how fighting together led to Edsa.

"Good people will fight if we lead them," so says Poe Dameron. There is enough good in us to fight for what is right. It is also in fighting our fears that we achieve.

In this present state when nothing seems right. When a president curses all the way. When people are doing their own relief work in Taal because government relief is slow. When government wants to drive Lumad people and their supporters to nowhere. When government lets the guilty go free from plunder cases. When government gives birthday cash to soldiers but does not give salary increase to teachers. When there is money for business but no money for services.

It is a time to show that doing right is the way to bring back the balance. The force be with us.