19th century Philippine Halberd from Spanish Colonial Guard

[David]

Not to dissuade you further, but while this is certainly part of the history of the Philippines in colonial times, were these not Spanish weapons welded by Spanish guards? Were they more likely to have been forged in the Philippines or Spain? By Europeans of Filipinos?
You would also be right to investigate exactly what they actually need in their collections and what the fate of this piece would be in their hands. I was just doing some research and was greatly disappointed to discover that while the Metropolitan Museum of Art has about 200 keris in their arms & armory collection not a single one of them is actually on display (and only about a half dozen have been photographed for their online collections gallery). Also, many museums have notoriously paid rather poor attention to the care and maintenance of their edged weapons collections, especially when they end up in draws in the basement instead of on display.