the panabas, for those who may be interested is a descendant, like most moro weapons, of a moro agricultural tool. it developed into a medical tool to assist the victors of a battle in treating the enemy wounded, special teams of veteran warriors would go around the battle field and use their panabas to remove the enemy wounded's heads in order to alleviate their suffering. in a spirit of conviviality and fair play, they would also so treat the lightly wounded and unwounded captives as well.
moro chieftans would normally have a entourage of panabas weilding guards who had apparently read 'alice in wonderland' and thought of their chieftan as the red queen. ('off with their heads' being the normal punishment for offending the red queen, as well as the moro chief).
the panabas was occasionaly used in the battle itself as a form of battle axe, but was normally reserved for it's post-battle and/or judicial applications.
