Question: I know it's hard to see, but the etchings are difficul

No, not Filipino. The symbols look like Japanese to me, but I'm no expert.

definitely seems like chinese characters.. but its origin's being in the philippines doesn't sound too surprising. there's chinese-filipino "chinoy" culture here--must've come from there.

it seems to be the Alibata the precolonial writing system in the Ph

@SiAko I (respectfully!) disagree. I'm very familiar with alibata, and these symbols don't match those. If you rotate the image and view the blade vertically down from the handle, they very much resemble Japanese or Chinese characters.

@acarp1890 thanks y'all! Thus points me in the right direction. I will continue my search.

I know beginner level chinese and chinese characters have some sort of consisnt way that they are written (in strokes). No modern/simplified mandarin characters are curved like that.

The first three characters are definitely 年如年, but I had to ask my Chinese friend on the last one. Even that one gave him a little bit of trouble to decipher because it's gotten so faded.My guess was 家, his guess was 音, 雪 and 意, but he sticks with the last one to make it 年如年意, which means something like "prosperity for every year".

@aemuhn I didn't realize they were chinese charcters until I read it sideways from the right side. You are likely correct.

I had always thought the ancient Filipino script was called Baybayin but doing a bit of research it appears that Baybayin and Alibata are one and the same.

@aemuhn Thanks! Yeah it was a bad photo. Heres a bit clearer.

@Jugabyte That is chinese, except the characters are upside-down in the photo.

@MagaaralTagalog ooh thanks lol