MANILA, Philippines - A bishop has urged the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to issue a nationwide “Oratio Imperata” to plead for rain from the heavens.

“I am appealing to may fellow prelates in the CBCP to issue a nationwide Oratio Imperata because so many farmers are suffering from El Niño,” Basilan Bishop Martin Jumoad said in a news item published on the CBCP website,http://www.cbcpnews.com/.

Jumoad said he will release on Friday a circular letter to his flock with the Oratio Imperata (mandated prayer) for “divine help and seeking rain.”

He said the prayer for rain will be read in all Masses in the province starting Friday.

The bishop added that a priest in Isabela City was scheduled to lead a flock of worshippers to pray for rain in a parish church. He said he has asked other priests to do the same.

The CBCP also ordered all prelates to recite a prayer for rain during Masses at the height of the El Niño phenomenon in 2007.

Jumoad, meanwhile, urged the government to further extend help to all the farmers affected by the dry spell that has destroyed billions worth of crops in at least 14 provinces in Luzon and Visayas.