My Wife is a Filippina and we often go back and forth to visit.
My Wifes Family are Farmers in the Provinces and live way out in the Jungle. When I say Jungle, I mean triple canopy jungle. A lot of places underneath all of that have a lush very fertile loam like soil. It's decades of natural composting.
I want you to consider patrolling through that or even trying to sneak up on someone in that. You can be standing six feet from someone and there is no way you can see them.
And when it's not 90 degree's it's the monsoon rains you have to deal with.
So that's pretty much the Flora, you really dont want to know about the creepy crawly things that will poke you bite you or sting you, that they call the Fauna.
Now that's the 21st Century Philippines, imagine, no roads or a public water system like in the late 19th century.

So here's my thoughts, you could be ambushed nearly anywhere or at anytime you got off of the road.
The Philippino's were using knives, swords and axes with a smattering of captured Spanish and American firearms.
So the fight is going to happen at arms length, which sounds preposterous unless you've experianced that jungle.
So the Pistol rules the roost here.
Bigger and Better Calibers are the rules.

As far as what they were using to get high to fight, I would suggest Mushrooms and / or Alcohol.
They have about 10 million varieties of mushrooms and they're all hunkered down in that fertile compost left behind in the jungle. You can't walk in some places without stepping on them after the monsoon.

The average Filippino guy is about 5'6" two generations ago it was likely 5'2". The farmers even in to their 40's are all guys that look like Bruce Lee when they take their shirts off. I really don't want to be playing tag with any of these guys out in the jungle especially if it's for keeps.