Herbie Gomez THE move by the Office of the Solicitor General last week to recommend the acquittal of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles of serious illegal detention charges caught everyone by surprise. It is correct to state that Napoles’s conviction under Article 267 of the Revised Penal Code was not directly related to the pork barrel scam. And it could be that a regional court made a mistake in convicting Napoles for illegally detaining her cousin and pork barrel scam whistleblower Benhur Luy. That is for the Court of Appeals to determine. The last time I checked, the solicitor general is supposed to represent the interests of the government and the people of the republic. But why is Solicitor General Jose Calida lawyering for Napoles when she already has a battery to legal counsels of her own who can take care of her defense before the appellate court? Exactly what is the Napoles serious illegal detention case to the Office of the Solicitor General? While Napoles is not in jail because of the pork barrel scam, at least she is behind bars. (So was Chicago crime boss Al Capone of the US Prohibition Era--what did him in was his income tax evasion case, and not his serious crimes.) Keeping Napoles in jail, I think, is what the people of the Philippines are interested on. If her private lawyers succeed in causing the reversal of the decision of the Regional Trial Court, then we, the people, suffer a setback. That’s how it’s supposed to be. But for the Office of the Solicitor General to come to her defense from out of a blue is what’s really troubling here. Given the numerous cases in the Office of the Solicitor General, it is its special and unusual interest on the Napoles illegal detention case that’s really disturbing. What is more disturbing is that one of the lawyers of Napoles turned out to be a deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue now, and at least two others were active in the 2016 presidential campaign of President Duterte, and they have remained as his staunch supporters. Then we hear presidential chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo spinning that the government only wants justice for all. Correct, except that, the double standard is so evident. By “all,” Panelo means Napoles. When it’s about Napoles, these guys understand justice, but not when it comes to the impoverished little man on the street who’s brains got blown off in the name of the so-called “war on drugs.” They think the unwashed and little Filipino murder victim, who hadn’t seen a courtroom all his life and who was not human in the opinion of the Justice Secretary, deserved the bullet. So, the Duterte administration’s solicitor general wants to free Napoles. And I thought they said they were against graft. Pastilan.