I finally woke up and looked into some research, specifically Peter Gowing's book Muslim Filipino-Heritage and Horizon (Queszon City: New Day Pub., 1979). He was the director Dansalan College, Marawi City and he writes:
"The office of panglima (personal representative of the Sultan)...carried certain perogatives and powers in Sulu..."(p.45)
Of datus he writes:
"There were (and still are) at leaset three kinds of datus in Moro society: datue-in-fact, daut-in-name, and royal datue. Datus-in-fact actually presided over a group of followers and /or controlled a give territory. Datus-in-name were as a courtesy called datus because they were born into aristocratic familiesd, while in reality they commanded no following and had no power."(p.47)
He then goes on to mention that the royal datus were related closely as blood relatives to the sultan.
In some ways it would seem that Willie may have a point, that it went: Sultan, Panglima, then Datu.
Of course this was not as hard and fast, but a little fluid in influence and power.
This might explain why some "datu class" pieces have very expensive gold, ivory, silver mounts and others less so, such a wide range.
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