Hi HRW,
I was in Moalboal for the first time this past July Ive been to Puerto Galera 5 or 6 times over the last 3 years so think I have a pretty good feel for it.
I wasnt so impressed with the diving in Moalboal, though I admit I was diving there during the low season. We spent 3 days diving and probably did about 10 12 dives, my biggest surprise was the lack of fish. The dives themselves were very beautiful lots of pretty walls that dropped straight down into the deep, beautiful gorgonian fans (Im a big fan of them, cant get enough) and more black coral than I have seen in any one place, as I recall, any dive over about 20 meters had loads of the stuff.
As the banca came to a stop on our first dive on pescador island we saw a group of about 20 30 banceros fishing about 20 meters from where we dropped in. I should have taken this as an omen. Over the course of the next 3 days it was kind of like diving a ghost town, there just werent many (any?) fish in sight. I do most of my diving in the Philippines, Im there about every month and Ive never had a single dive with as little life as any of the more than 10 dives we did in Moalboal. Maybe we were there at the wrong time of year, had bad luck, bad dive guides, etc. but I have to wonder. The dive shop we used there was Savedra, seems to be one of the bigger shops and I have no complaints about the shop, DMs, etc. The owner / manager was a nice guy and even gave us some great tips on places to stay on the cheap in Cebu.
Moalboal is a nice place to stay though, very chilled out and a lot smaller and quieter than Puerto Galera, which isnt very big and busy itself. It was a nice change of pace, check out Pacitas nipa huts as a place to stay if you go there. Because it is so small you end up eating, drinking, etc. with lots of the locals a nice change from places like boracay, cebu, bohol, etc.
As far as the diving goes though, Id have to choose Puerto Galera I think the diving on the whole is better, there are certainly a hell of a lot more fish around! As a place to stay Id have to recommend the Terraces (or maybe called the Steps & Gardens now). It is very reasonably priced ($10 $15), clean, great views, nice staff, convenient, etc. You can pay a lot more and stay in fancier places for sure but I tend to be a bit cheap when traveling in the Phils, I think this is one of the better deals around. Any search here or elsewhere on the net will get you loads of info on dive shops in PG. Ones I can recommend personally, Frontier divers (also have a picture of the Terraces on their website I think), Atlantis (big, well organized, do lots of tec training) and South Seas Divers (nice guys, fun place to hang out between dives).
Good luck and enjoy your trip wherever you decide to go!
Joe