Thanks for your insight Spunjer and Pepperskull.
I fell in the same line as Pepperskull mentioned. Years ago I bought in to the whole FMA with the Moro motif. But being a student of Philippine history in general, I thought it best to do my own research on general FMA history and their weapons; since some of the storys and fables surrounding FMA didn't make any sense history-wise. Which evidently lead me to this site and really opened my eyes. I just cant believe the beauty of these weapons that come out of Luzon and the Visayas that seem to be long forgotten and are eclipsed by the more popular Moro theme. I can actually see how through the years the Visayan weaponry fell off from the FMA world.
Ridiculous I think how some FMA groups even go so far as to wear some Moro garb as uniform and pose with Moro weapons...then you look at the style it is more similar to what is being practiced in the Visayas or Luzon region. And their background, they lived in Luzon or the Visayas all their life. I have a problem with the idea that most grandmasters do not even document their system; they rather keep it all locked in their head. Somewhat understandable considering most are poor and they fear that a document can be stolen....but, when they die, so does a large part of their system.
One other thing I do not like about our Filipino culture, the way we kept track and past on our history. The older generation told stories the tribal way, which is word of mouth...and as most uncles and manongs do, they tend to really spice the stories up...which through the years just morphs and turns the history in to all these non-sense fables and folklores. None of them wrote out or documented anything with out bias. And this is carried on today by the Masters, Grandmasters, and even the new teachers who pass these stories on to their students[like me]. As fun as many of these stories are, they need to start drawing the line somewhere.
Im gonna shoot myself if I hear another story of Kali coming from Lapu-Lapu, or this art was used to defend the land against the Spanish(which leads people to think we were originally Moro), or how FMA was outlawed by the Spanish, or FMA came from Moro-Moro plays, or the Spanish outlawed swords so the Filipinos began to use sticks. How about telling the real story. The story of the Christianized Filipinos who actually formulated an art to combat Moro piracy and raiding? Or the story how the Spanish used Filipinos to fight against the Moros and other rebellious tribes(which coincidentally happened to be Filipinos out of Cebu, Bohol, IloIlo, Panay, Samar/Leyte, and Negros, where non-Moro FMA gained a strong foothold and spread. Or the story of Katipunan bolomen during the 1896 Revolution and later against the American forces? The outlaw of MA and blades by the Spanish is only true to a certain extent...Filipinos were farmers and a bolo is a required tool the Spanish knew we needed...and also there is proof the Spanish converted and trained many of these warrior tribes. It is just a great injustice to the past eskrimadors of the Spanish era, to simply gloss over this part of FMA history, and rather just go with something that is more marketable today[the Moro theme]. Those eskrimadors who actually fought against the Moros must be spinning in their grave right now. Funny how most of these FMA schools try so hard to say how pure their tradition and system is, that they go so far to exclude anything and everything Spanish era influenced; and some evidently embraced the Moro motif, and even more ridiculous how they just exclude these great Visayan and Luzon weapons of their past. And nearly all of them can not even trace their system to the 1500s(pre-hispanic era); let alone the 1600 and 1700s!...so how can most of them say their system is actually a pure native art. Sorry, Im just peeved to see this part of our culture and heritage go down the wrong path like this.
Sorry Robert for side tracking this thread!!! 
Maybe we should of started our own thread. hehe