Mitch.. second hand pickups etc may be more expensive here but look at it this way..They hold their value so in 2 or 3 years if you sell it you will get most of your money back.. I would stick with Toyota,Mitsubishi or Isuzu as parts are easy to find as either brand new or orininal surplus parts..
When my Bosch hammer drill passed away here I bought a new Makita variant (Maktec) that they sell here really cheap for around 2.5 K from memory..Maktec tools are actually made by Makita but sold here at a fraction of the cost of Makita tools... Heres their website
http://www.maktec.co.za/
The best advice I can give you is to stay away from anything Chinese ..Just about everything sold to the Philippines by the Chinese is defective,substandard and often dangerous!
Cheers,
Fred.