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Dr. Orlando "Dong" Tizon: Presente!By VVAWVVAW just discovered that long-time VVAW friend and ally Dr. Orlando "Dong" Tizon passed away in 2016. Dong was a Filipino activist, torture survivor, human rights advocate, and doctor of sociology. He served as the Assistant Director of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) in Washington, DC. Here are a few facts about this fighter for justice, and some of his own words. Dong, you will be missed. Presente!, Dong. Orlando "Dong" Tizon was arrested in Davao City, Philippines, in 1982 when he was accused of being subversive because of his work with farmers, fishermen, and youth to educate them about their rights. Under the Marcos regime, any organization that questioned the dictatorship was considered a rebellion. "When you work with poor people and people in rural areas, you become a suspect and accused of inciting a rebellion against the government because the poor were the most dissatisfied and badly hurt by the Marcos government," he said. "I am a survivor of torture. I was arrested with four others on September 20, 1982, in Davao City, in the southern island of Mindanao, Philippines. I was kept incommunicado for three weeks in Camp Catitipan of the Philippine Constabulary in the outskirts of the city. I was kept blindfolded and under constant interrogation, drugged, subjected to beatings and all kinds of threats, including mock executions." Orlando "Dong" Tizon thought he was going to be executed, as he stood blindfolded with his hands cuffed behind his back. When the shots were fired, he fell to the ground, but he was not hurt. His prison guards just picked him up and resumed interrogating him. "You're completely in their power—they can do anything they want with you," he said. "They tell you they're going to kill you, and they can do it. They did it to some, bodies being thrown out and people just disappearing were very common." "Only after three weeks were the five of us allowed to talk to each other. One of the women arrested with us told us that she had been raped by soldiers using instruments dipped in hot pepper. We were finally allowed to receive visitors and talk to our lawyers. After three months, the five of us were transferred to the detention center in the city. While there, I saw prisoners interrogated at any time of the day or night; several were taken from detention never to come back." "In April of the following year, I was interrogated again. They attempted to extract information from me for two weeks. Once, two men in civilian clothes questioned me, and one of them, trying to use a friendly approach, told me he had attended a military school in a camp in the southern United States. He bragged that he could sing US country folk music better than some Americans." "I was released from prison after President Marcos was thrown out of power in 1986." "I relate to torture survivors as someone who has survived torture," Tizon said. "Torture is one of those things you can't understand secondhand." "I add my voice to the voices of other survivors of torture calling that the practice of torture be outlawed once and for all throughout the world." "I arrived in Chicago in the early 1990s. Some of the first people I got to know were Barry Romo and Bill Branson. They invited me to a VVAW cookout. It was during one of those cookouts that I first met Dave Curry at Barry's old apartment." "I told him that I was planning to enroll in graduate school in Chicago and take up sociology. He very kindly asked me why I wanted to do this, and I told him I wanted to go back to teaching. He gave me a few tips about graduate school in the US and about teaching. He was an inspiration for me to go on and become a sociologist."
Sources:
•The Veteran, Fall 2015
•The Daily Illini, April 20, 2006
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