Artex Compound
The Artex Compound is a permanently flooded residential area in Malabon, Philippines. The area has been referred to, often facetiously, as the "Venice of Malabon" or the "Venice of the Philippines" due to its partially submerged structures, makeshift stilt houses, and the use of rowboats for transportation between houses. Formerly a housing compound built for workers of a textile mill, around 200-250 families continue to live within the Artex Compound despite being permanently flooded since 2004. The compound is also the subject of a long-running labor and ownership dispute between the residents and the former owners of the textile mill. It has since become an alternative tourism site frequented by street photographers, students, researchers, journalists, documentarists, and filmmakers. History Located in Barangay Panghulo, the Artex Compound was a rent-free housing project built for the workers of the Artex Development Co., Inc., a textile and thread manufacturing factory that has operated since the 1960s. Most of its 1,200 workers and their families lived in the Artex Compound, some for more than 30 years. Artex was owned by the Typoco family, who were cronies of President Ferdinand Marcos. In 1984, the workers of Artex under the Samahan ng mga Manggagawa sa Artex