I attach a photo from the original poster highlighted. This to me, from this photo, looks like strong contrast kara taban wootz.
I've seen quite a few Moro pieces, and though not an expert in that region, cannot say I've seen similar lamination on those kinds of sword, or quite frankly many other blades that are laminated as opposed to watered.
Perhaps Asian Paladin can post some more images of this part of the blade.
One would imagine that if Indonesian parangs were mounted with Persian or Indian wootz blades and that Moro smiths were skilled enough to make exceptional quality twistcore then a wootz forged blade would be in the realm of possibility.
If combining that with the fact that barongs often had Chinese smith forged blades and there is strong evidence of the Chinese using wootz billets to make blades then could such an exceptional, perhaps Datu's barong, have been forged with wootz to signify the importance of the owner?
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