~==h .====~,~ ...===,===~~··-====·========== • Palm oil expansion in Palawan (Region IV), where cause-oriented groups has demanded a moratorium on such expansion from the government; • The palm oil industry in the Municipality of Opol, Misamis Oriental (Region X); • Cases of child labor in oil palm plantations in Agusan del Sur (Region XIII), where Filipinas Palm Plantation Plantation, Inc. (FPPI) and Agusan Plantation, Inc. (API) operate. The complaints of communities against agribusiness firms are land grabbing and encroachment on ancestral domains and lands; environmental degradation; breach of contract; unconscionable terms and conditions in agribusiness venture agreements; corruption of government officials; threats to one's personal security and freedom of movement; circumvention of government processes, particularly those on obtaining free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples; and labor and social legislation issues, such as on child labor, nonpayment of minimum wage. Such complaints pertain to justiciable causes of action, which may be brought to the proper forum such as the courts or the respective quasi-judicial agencies that are mandated to implement the applicable laws violated. Even the Human Rights Council would recommend that existing redress mechanisms should be availed by the marginalized and the vulnerable.89 It recommends that: "In the event of human rights violations, victims could make better use of existing national, regional and international monitoring mechanisms, possibly with the support of national and international non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions. Regional and national monitoring mechanisms have ali-eady proven to be very useful for the implementation of the rights of people working in rural areas. New international instruments, such as the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted by the General Assembly in December 2008, will offer new possibilities for access to justice at the international level. And the Human Rights Council should consider creating a new special procedure to improve the promotion and protection of the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. "(Emphasis ours) Still, there are practical barriers for the communities to pursue legal remedies, such as lack of competent legal assistance, inability to shoulder costs in preparing for the case and collecting evidence, threats from powerful government officials who are behind the illegal activities, among others. On the other hand, the current efforts of the international community to finalize a declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas is in itself the result of a gap analysis spearheaded in such universal extent.90 To fill in the gap, the United Nations Human Rights Council has recommended that the right to land and other natural resources should be recognized in international human rights law. There is now a movement to make peasants and rural dwellers as a class that renders "Free, Prior and Informed Consent" particularly for development activities, regardless of their being part of indigenous communities. Recognition for other significant areas of human rights are being sought, such as the rural dwellers' rights to the means of production in the form of seeds and other farm inputs. The full text of the Draft Declaration as of May 2016 is attached herewith as Annex "H." 89 Human Rights Council Advisory Committee (January 18, 2012) op. cit., page 18 90 On May 17 to 20, 2016, the third session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on a United Nations declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas took place in Geneva, Switzerland 48