'There can be no reconciliation without justice': President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines

President Benigno C. Aquino III before his inauguration

I don't as a rule watch television when I'm eating with someone but I made an exception today while having lunch with Charlie Jamilla, my general factotum, as we both watched the noontime inauguration of President Benigno 'Noynoy' C. Aquino III as President of the Republic of the Philippines.

I think that there is a sense of a genuine new beginning in the Philippines, though there will be no overnight change in this country that is plagued with poverty and corruption. Rightly or wrongly, there is a perception that corruption became worse than ever during the nine-years of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. She, with the support of many, overthrew President Joseph Estrada, whose real name is Jose Marcelo Ejercito, in 2001. She was then vice-president. She later promised that she wouldn't run for president in 2004 but changed her mind. There is some evidence that she won that election through massive cheating, though cheating is endemic here, unfortunately. She was linked with other scandals, as was her husband, Miguel Arroyo, though nothing has been proven.

President Aquino gave his inauguration speech mostly in Filipino, the national language that is, in theory, evolving from the various regional languages but is, in reality, practically the same as Tagalog, the language of Manila and surrounding provinces. One thing he said in English was, 'To those who are talking about reconciliation, if they mean that they would like us to simply forget about the wrongs that they have committed in the past, we have this to say: there can be no reconciliation without justice'.

I was happy to hear this and I believe that the new president will try to implement this. There is far too much meaningless easy 'reconciliation' not only in the Philippines but elsewhere. We're all far too familiar with 'apologies' from public figures along the lines of 'I'm sorry you feel that way' which utterly fail to acknowledge personal responsibility. 

The new president's father, Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino Jr, was murdered at Manila International Airport on 21 August 1982, just after being escorted of a plane by soldiers. The airport is now called 'Ninoy Aquino International Airport', or 'NAIA'. Filipinos love to use acronyms.

23 August 1983. The body of Rolly Galman, the alleged killer lies on the left. He too was murdered and very few believe he killed Ninoy Aquino, whose body is being carried by two soldiers.

I met Noynoy Aquino very briefly in Cebu City a few days after his father's assassination. His mother, Cory, became president in 1986 after defeating the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. She died on 1 August last year and it was the feelings around her death and burial that created the momentum for her only son to be pushed to run for president.

President Corazon 'Cory' C. Aquino

Please pray that President 'Noynoy' Aquino will bring some hope to the Philippines along with a sense of decency and responsibility, qualities so lacking in public life in recent years. He is not and cannot be a messiah but he needs and deserves our prayers. He carries no baggage of association with corruption. That is a plus. May God bless his presidency, his team and, through them, the people of the Philippines.

Incoming President Aquino with outgoing President Gloria Arroyo, before setting off for the inauguration

Julien's Auction prices are down

Well, the Julien's Star Trek auction, announced last November, finally happened yesterday, and was a success for collectors because of reasonable prices and a wide range of low priced items from the Shatner and Roddenberry auctions. The JJ movie items finished the auction and we were all shocked at how reasonable the prices were.

Julien's has taken down their online catalog, but you can see the Flash catalog here and the lot by lot descriptions here.

As predicted the items in the Shatner and Roddenberry portions of the sale all went at very reasonable prices. I actually won the insignia lot, which had two Maroon jacket insignias and a maroon belt.buckle. The lot, which I was willing to go to $ 1,500 on ($ 500 for each of these items I figured) went for only $ 475. Part of the reason is that the lot was so poorly described. No authentication and no description of if any of the items were real or not. Certainly no one at Julien's has that kind of expertise, and they didn't bother to access any experts. The two TNG badges here were both repros and I inspected the lot in person or else I wouldn't have bid on it. I am sure that had to do with the low hammer price.

The Nemesis Turbolift Panel went for a strong $ 1,700.

The Class D and Class B costumes went for $ 500 each.

The Lwaxana Troi costumes did fairly well, and all went under $ 2,000 as I predicted. Still, these are good prices in an auction that was way under market.

Lot # 1564.....$ 1,300

Lot # 1565.....$ 1,400

Lot # 1566.....$ 1,900

Lot # 1567.....$1,100

Lot # 1568.....$1,700


THE JJ ITEMS

Right after these 5 costumes from the Roddenberry Estate came the items donated by JJ Abrahms. Now this started with 8 Enterprise models made by QMX that were then worked on by a series or artists making them pieces of Star Trek art. Now frankly, some of these were down right awful. One or two were interesting, but unless these are done by Alexander Calder or Andy Warhol, I don't see the interest. And neither did anyone else as the models all sold at only $ 500, half of the opening bid!


I had predicted that prices on the 17 JJ movie items would be out of control, but this was not the case. In fact, the last 17 items all went at very reasonable prices! Here is the rundown:

Lot # 1577 Kelvin Crew Member Costume $ 2,750

Lot # 1578 Kelvin Phaser $ 7,000

Lot # 1579 Hero Kelvin Bridge Chair $ 1,500

Lot # 1580 Klingon Rifle $ 1,100

Lot # 1581 Romulan Pistol $ 1,750

Lot # 1582 Romulan Rifle $ 2,250

Lot # 1583 Romulan Crew Member Costume $ 2,000

Lot # 1584 Starfleet Female Cadet Costume $ 1,700

Lot # 1585 Enterprise Insignia Badges $ 1,700

Lot # 1586 Starfleet Male Cadet Costume $ 2,000

Lot # 1587 Starfleet Council Chair $ 500

Lot # 1588 Enterprise Data Tablet $ 1,100

Lot # 1589 Medical Tricorder $ 2,250

Lot # 1590 Enterprise Crew Member Costume $ 2,000

Lot # 1591 Enterprise Communicator $ 6,000

Lot # 1592 Spock Torch $ 750

Lot # 1593 Spock Parka $ 7,000


So why the reasonable prices? Well..

1) Ridiculous Buyer's Premiums - I already wrote about this and I think this was the big reason. 25-28% is out of control. No excuse for this.

2) Buyer fatigue - I heard from lots of collectors that not only had they spent a ton at Profiles. but they were waiting for the Propworx auction. This auction only had 41 props & costumes and people weren't prioritizing this.

3) There is lots more - This is the tip of the iceberg. Be patient and there will be tons of JJ movie items when the inevitable Star Trek movie auction happens.

Overall, I think Julien's does a nice set up, but there lack of experience with Star Trek was very evident. Poor descriptions and lack of understanding of what collectors expect in this regard hurt them. Their crazy buyer's premium and high shipping costs mean they should stick to very high end items where people have so much money they don't care. I really think that big auction companies can't do the fan and small collector market's well. The ROI isn't there and thus they don't invest the time in developing the markets and doing what the fans and collectors need.

Anyway, a good little auction for buyers who got some good deals.

Alec