Most of the country’s dive retail sits in Manila, and most of Manila’s dive retail sits in Makati. Whether you’re a Manila local picking up your first Open Water set, a weekend diver heading to Anilao who needs a new mask before Saturday, an instructor in town for a regulator overhaul, or a traveler covering one missing piece of kit before flying south — the shops below are where it gets handled.
How Manila handles dive gear
Makati is the deepest concentration of dive shops in the Philippines. Brand distributors, full-service retailers, regulator benches, and the country’s only walk-in underwater imaging specialist all sit within a few kilometers of each other. Resort shops at the dive destinations carry consumables — o-rings, mouthpieces, fin straps, mask defog, the occasional replacement mask. Anything bigger and you’re back to Manila, or you ordered online and shipped to your hotel.
Pricing is the tradeoff. Imported brands run roughly 15–30% above US or European retail because of import duties, distributor margins, and the smaller Philippine market. Locally manufactured options exist for masks, fins, wetsuits, and rashguards at lower price points, and the gap is narrower for entry-level kit. For high-end regulators, dive computers, and technical gear, expect the markup.
The shops worth knowing
Listed alphabetically. Locations, hours, and full brand lists live in the individual listings — what’s below is enough to know which shop to call first.
Aquamundo Sports — JP Rizal, Poblacion, Makati. The first Philippine brand of scuba gear, selling its own line rather than imported labels — masks, fins, wetsuits, BCDs, regulators, and accessories designed in-house and built by established OEM manufacturers, plus the Lalum freediving fin range. Prices sit well under the imported brands, and after-sales support runs through the same counter that sold you the gear. The walk-in for a complete set without the import markup.
Aquaventure Whitetip Dive Supply — Kamagong corner Dungon Street, San Antonio Village, Makati, with the country’s largest satellite footprint at major dive destinations (Anilao, Puerto Galera, Boracay, Mactan, Coron, El Nido, Panglao, Dumaguete). The biggest importer-distributor in the Philippines — current distribution lines run Mares, Sherwood, Tecline, Suunto, Ocean Reef full-face masks, Sealife cameras, and Coltri compressors. Brand lineups change hands here more often than divers expect, so confirm a specific brand before the trip. Best for consistent stock and pricing whether you’re shopping in Manila or at the destination.
Divers Point Co. — Wilson Square, 199 Wilson Street corner P. Guevarra, San Juan. Philippine distributor for IST and Beuchat, main dealer for Crest dive computers and Bigblue lights, plus Inon underwater imaging. Pricing on the house brands is competitive because they’re the importer, and the webstore ships nationwide. Beuchat coverage also makes this the easiest walk-in for spearfishing and freediving cross-over kit.
Nautilus Dive and Sports Center — Cattleya Condominium, 235 Salcedo Street, Legaspi Village, Makati. An importer-wholesaler since 1995 that opened its own retail counter in 1999, and it still runs like a working dive shop. Stocks mainstream gear across the categories, keeps scuba and snorkel rental sets maintained in-house, and the service bench takes any brand. Hours are tight — call or message before visiting.
Ocean Dive Supply Philippines — Dian Street, Palanan, Makati, with branches in Sabang-Puerto Galera, Boracay, Coron, Cebu City, Mactan, Alona-Bohol, and Dumaguete. The lineup now centers on Cressi, backed by Waterproof wetsuits, Metal Impact tanks, L&W compressors, and a deep wall of lights and accessories — plus PADI course materials and a full rental program. Equipment servicing runs in-house, there’s a dedicated wetsuit repair shop, and both repairs and webstore orders ship by LBC if you can’t pick up.
Pacifica Dive — Ziebart Building, 2226 Chino Roces Avenue corner Don Bosco, Makati. The exclusive Scubapro distributor for the Philippines, which makes it the address for Scubapro sales, spare parts, and warranty service — alongside Gull, Ocean Reef, Divevolk smartphone housings, Seacraft DPVs, and Bauer compressors for fill stations. Best for Scubapro divers, anyone eyeing a scooter, and shops setting up a compressor.
Scuba Studio — P. Guevarra corner Seaview Street, San Juan. A dive center first — training, dive travel, and a 20-foot training pool, one of the deepest in the metro — with a retail and service side attached, and the XDEEP dealer for backplate-and-wing and sidemount rigs. Useful when you want to test gear at proper depth before committing to it.
Splash Underwater Imaging — Shoppesville Arcade, 2nd Floor, Greenhills Shopping Center, San Juan. The underwater-imaging specialist most of the country’s shooters end up at, running since 2004. Housings from Nauticam, Ikelite, Marelux, Seacam, and Recsea; strobes from Inon, Sea & Sea, and Retra; video and focus lights from Keldan, Light & Motion, and Scubalamp; OM System, Sony, and Nikon bodies — plus a pre-owned corner and a webstore that ships nationwide. Handles housing servicing — hard to find anywhere else in the Philippines.
Squires Bingham Sports — Oakridge Plaza, Paseo de Magallanes, Makati. A high-end, full-line scuba and underwater imaging boutique run by Scott “Gutsy” Tuason, one of the country’s best-known underwater photographers — the family business dates back over a century. The stock is curated rather than exhaustive, special orders are a house specialty (if they don’t carry it, they’ll source it), and the same shop runs liveaboard charters and photography workshop trips. Worth knowing about even if you walk into Splash first.
Tech and freediving: where the niches sit
Tech-leaning divers have more walk-in options than the mainstream shelves suggest. Pacifica covers the Scubapro side of a tech setup plus Seacraft DPVs; Aquaventure Whitetip distributes Tecline plates, wings, and SCR rebreathers; Scuba Studio is the XDEEP dealer, with a pool to test a new rig in. Stage tanks, doubles, and the more specialized configurations are still mostly order-in stock on lead times of two to four weeks.
For a fully tech-focused operation, Philippine Technical Divers (PhilTech) at Buma Building, Makati has been at it since 1994 — Asia’s first IANTD licensee. They blend nitrox, trimix, and heliox with fills up to 450 bar where the cylinder allows, sell and service tech-specific kit, and run the training to match, from decompression procedures through wreck and cave. Worth a Facebook message before you go shopping for anything sidemount or rebreather-related. Tech Asia, based in Sabang, Puerto Galera, is the country’s other major tech destination — many Manila tech divers do the trip down for training and gear ordering in one go.
Freediving has more counters than it used to. Aquamundo’s own Lalum fin line is the homegrown option, Ocean Dive Supply runs a dedicated freediving range (masks, fins, computers, wetsuits, weight belts), and Divers Point’s Beuchat coverage spans scuba, freediving, and spearfishing. Stride & Stroke, with stores at Alabang Town Center and Ayala Malls Manila Bay, is the mall walk-in for freediving fins, masks, and snorkels. For competition-spec kit — monofins, low-volume masks, AIDA-spec lanyards — most freedivers in Manila still order through their school’s supply chain or directly from Anilao and Cebu freediving operators.
Where to get equipment serviced in Manila
Most full-service shops above run benches: Nautilus (any brand), Ocean Dive Supply, Pacifica, Scuba Studio, and PhilTech for tech kit handle annual regulator service, BCD inflator and dump-valve service, and dive computer battery and o-ring service in-house; Aquamundo services its own line. Turnaround is typically a few days to a week depending on parts availability for your model. Warranty work usually routes back through the brand’s Philippine distributor — Pacifica for Scubapro, Aquaventure Whitetip for Mares, Sherwood, and Suunto, Divers Point for IST and Beuchat — and distribution changes hands often enough that it’s worth asking who currently holds your brand.
Hydrostatic testing and tank visual inspection are a separate concern. Most Manila shops outsource hydro to testing centers in Cavite or Batangas, so build extra lead time into the schedule if you’re traveling with your own cylinder and the test is due. Visual inspection is faster and most service-bench shops handle it directly.
Are dive shops cheaper outside Manila?
Mostly no, and often the opposite. Resort shops in Anilao, Boracay, Mactan, Moalboal, and Bohol carry less stock and price the consumables they do carry at small-town markups. The exceptions are the Aquaventure Whitetip and Ocean Dive Supply branch stores at the major destinations — pricing there tracks the Manila mother stores since they’re the same chains.
For warranty service, repairs, and replacement parts on imported brands, expect the gear to route back to a Manila distributor anyway. If you live outside Metro Manila and your regulator needs an annual service, the regulator is going on a bus or a courier sooner or later. The same applies to housing seals, dive computer transmitters, and any part the local resort shop doesn’t carry — most of those parts live in a Manila stockroom regardless of where you bought the gear.
Plan a Manila gear visit
A few practical things divers in Manila figure out the hard way.
Most shops respond fastest on Facebook Messenger or Instagram DM. Several of the bigger shops run webstores that ship nationwide — Ocean Dive Supply, Splash, Divers Point — but the working channel for anything specific is still to message ahead, confirm stock, and reserve the item before making the trip. A reply usually comes within a few hours during business days.
A lot of the shops will ship if you can’t pick up. LBC cover overnight or 2-3 day shipping to most of the country; Lalamove or Grab Express cover same-day within Metro Manila. Worth asking up front — sometimes there’s a small handling fee, sometimes the shop just adds the courier charge to the invoice.
If you’re going in person, batch by district. Aquamundo, Ocean Dive Supply, Pacifica, Aquaventure Whitetip, Nautilus, Squires Bingham, and PhilTech all sit within a few kilometers of each other in Makati and are realistic to cover in a single half-day. The San Juan trio — Splash in Greenhills, Divers Point on Wilson, and Scuba Studio on P. Guevarra — sits minutes apart and makes a natural second run. Manila traffic eats the gear-shopping window if you try to chain both in one go — plan one zone per trip.
These shops sit alongside the rest of Metro Manila’s dive scene in the Manila Dive Guide. The full set of dive businesses across the city is in the Manila listings, and the dive gear shops directory filters down to gear-only across the country.
Most divers using Manila as a base also dive Anilao and Puerto Galera on weekends — both are within a few hours of the city, and both are reasons most of the gear bought here gets used hard within weeks.
