You will have much more choice in sewing machines if you buy one abroad, however chances are that if you buy the latest Bernina or Pfaff, you won't be able to have it repaired here if something goes wrong with it.
In the Philippines, if you want to buy a new sewing machine, you are looking at spending P10,000 upwards.
Brother and Singer both have centrally located service centers as well as website showing their full collections. Brother sells mainly though stores such as Abenson, Automatic Centre etc and their repair centre in in Bonfacio Global City. Singer sells from their own stores, one of which is in downtown Manila but one recently opened up along Sen Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati near Pres. Osmena Highway. Lazada (mail order) also now carries sewing machines including some Singers as well as a simple Juki which is a good brand. They also carry more obscure brands which I have never heard of so have no idea wether to recommend. Stay away from the P1000 machines as they are not worth the money if you want to sew anything more than 2 layers of thin fabric together.
I usually recommend you stick to more basic ones as they are much easier to repair here. If you are a beginning sewer all you need a straight stitch, a zig zag and an automatic buttonhole. You will rarely use all the other features and they make the machines more susceptible to problems as well as more difficult to repair .
If you are looking for a second hand machine, there is a market down in the Port Area opposite the Philippine Star offices which sells second hand sewing machine from Japan for P2,500 upwards. They are usually 100V so you need to factor in the cost of a transformer. These machines come with no warranty and if they are obscure brands, might be difficult to repair here. However I have many friends who bought machines there and were perfectly happy as they worked for years. Do keep the number of the stall you bought it at as if something goes wrong, they may be able to repair it with parts from the other machines they have lying around.
