To sum up my earlier comments in the thread cited above:
There always were low quality blades, in all cultures (including medieval Japan, Europe, etc.); good craftmanship and, especially, quality materials were just too expensive for less affluent strata of any traditional society.
There always were high quality blades in all ethnic groups throughout the Philippines (as well as most Indonesian regions). There are enough surviving antique examples from any of these groups which attest to the bladesmithing skills of their ancestors.
There certainly are antique Moro blades of lousy quality found, too.
Cast steel was economically produced in China and widely exported all over Southeast Asia (and beyond). This steel was of lesser quality - it can be improved upon by skilled blacksmithing though. Like with locally produced bloomery steel, this processing costs resources (fuel, considerable loss of material, labor & time) and may be cut short when trying to work for a heavily limited budget...
And it should be noted that the Moro also imported steel from China and a notable amount of barung blades even got trademarked with (often fake) Chinese marks. Seems that the source of the steel did not necessarily resulted in subpar blades...
Regards,
Kai
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