President Benigno C. Aquino III has appointed former Integrated Bar of the Philippines president Jose Anselmo “Joel” Cadiz as the new Solicitor General, Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Thursday.

He replaced Assistant Solicitor General Amparo Tang, the Office of the Solicitor General officer-in-charge.

Cadiz was part of the PNoy lawyers group, the legal arm of Aquino's campaign team in the May 10, 2010 polls.

The IBP, which he headed from 2003-2006, said Cadiz who hails from Naga City, finished grades school at the Naga Parochial School in 1970 and high school at the Ateneo de Naga in 1974 where he had Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo as classmate.

Robredo and Cadiz are boyhood friends, IBP said.

He finished his pre-law and law studies at the University of the Philippines-Diliman campus. He was part of the UP Law Class 1986.

Cadiz is an Edward Mason Fellow, finishing Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.

According to the website of the Harvard Kennedy School, Cadiz — Mason Fellow 2008-2009 — “has dedicated his professional life to improving the justice system for those who have no voice.”

“As president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines from 2003 to 2006, he expanded that organization’s legal aid program, seeking speedier trials for detainees who do not have the means to post bail and often languish in prison for years before having their day in court,” the website said.

In the article, Cadiz said: “Since the justice system in the Philippines is so slow, many detainees have already served their time before the trial starts,” he explains. “It’s bad enough for those who are guilty, but what about those who are innocent? We traveled the country applying for liberty for these prisoners, and in many cases they were released.”