By the time his killers were done with him, the body of Ranilo Maydan Jr. looked like it had been used for target practice. According to the police, he was shot 34 times.

“The rapid burst of gunfire came in staccatos, making you think someone had lit up a Judas Belt on New Year’s Eve,” said Jacklyn Habulan, a sister of Maydan’s live-in partner, Abby.

The 32-year-old Maydan, who made a living selling scraps, was gunned down outside his house on Jerusalem Street, Caloocan City, at 1:25 a.m. on Sept. 21.

Jacklyn said even Maydan’s fingers bore bullet wounds which showed that he was covering his face as he was being shot. However, that didn’t stop his killers from shooting him in the head.

Even his teeth were not spared. “A bullet was stuck in his lower teeth,” said Abby, whose real name is Abner Habulan.

Abby knew the damage to the body because he did the makeup for the weeklong wake. There were strips of packing tape wrapped around Maydan’s neck and shoulders to keep them from separating from his head. Bits of cotton covered the gunshot holes on his chest.

“I wanted to help prepare his body because I wanted him to know that I cared for him until our very last moment together,” Abby, 31, said.

Abby became teary-eyed while recalling how kind Maydan had been to him and his family. They were together for five years, their families having accepted their relationship.

“I will miss how playful he was. I will miss how he used to prepare breakfast for us,” Abby said.

In an effort to move on, Abby and his two sisters left their house right after the killing. They also gave away some of the things that reminded them of Maydan. Despite their efforts to forget, however, the trauma caused by his death remains.

“I have heard about people who were killed. I’ve seen dead people, too. But it’s different when someone you love gets killed. It’s far worse than having a loved one die of illness,” Abby said.

Abby and his sisters were initially reluctant to talk about the circumstances surrounding Maydan’s death. But during the wake, the stand for his coffin broke and it took 15 people to lift it onto another one.

They added that on the day of the funeral, the hearse suffered a flat tire with some people commenting about how heavy Maydan’s body seemed to be. According to what they had been told by their parents, when the body of a crime victim seems extraordinarily heavy, it means that the person is seeking justice for his death.

Although Maydan was in the watchlist of Barangay 150 as a drug pusher, he never sold drugs, Abby claimed. An occasional “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) user, Maydan stopped after Mr. Duterte took over, he said.

“Thirty-four shots. For someone who already kicked the habit, did he really deserve to die that way?” Abby asked.

When Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) went over the spot where Maydan was killed, they encircled 34 areas where they recovered slugs, Jacklyn said.

They also found two bullets, bringing the number of shells and slugs fired from .45-cal. pistols to 36—the equivalent of three magazines.

According to the Habulan sisters, armed men wearing black jackets and ski masks barged into their house, held them at gunpoint and then dragged Maydan outside.

News reports called the still unidentified men members of the “Caloocan Death Squad” but Maydan called them “sir.”

“He told them: ‘I’m not him, sir,” Abby recalled, adding that two of the killers wore camouflage shorts.

It’s not clear if Maydan knew them but he went with them “without resistance,” Abby said. As they were walking him out, he gently tapped the Habulan sisters on their heads.

“It was like he was telling us to stay put and not do anything,” Jacklyn said.

Successive gunshots

The Habulan sisters hugged each other as gunshots rang out. When the noise subsided, Jacklyn cried out: “He’s dead.”

It took about an hour before Maydan’s body was taken to the funeral home. His blood and innards were scattered all over the narrow alley in front of their house.

That night, a crying Jacklyn used a broomstick to sweep Maydan’s blood down a drainage as her neighbors watched. “That was all I could do,” she said. “I was very mad.”

Abby was in a corner crying, too. There was also anger in his heart.

Jacklyn said: “While sweeping his blood, I was talking to him in my head, asking him to never stop pricking his killers’ conscience. I told him: ‘Never ever give them peace of mind.’”

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