This paper presents the parallel development of Filipino as the national language and the primary medium of instruction in the Philippine education milieu, and the Department of Linguistics in the University of the Philippines Diliman, which was originally established in order to create a synthetic language from the different languages in the Philippines. The eventual emergence of the concept of Filipino as a ‘true’ language will be traced. Arguments for and against the existence of Filipino will be discussed, and then the role of UP Department of Linguistics in the formulation of Filipino as the national language. It will be seen that the rationales for the establishment of UP Department of Linguistics do and do not influence Filipino as the national lingua franca. Misconceptions about the limitations of Filipino as medium of instruction and the nature of language as a whole relevant to Filipino will be deliberated as well. Juxtaposing the histories of the Filipino language and the UP Department of Linguistics will prove that Filipino may be used in the academic world and that it may be able to cope up by accommodating novel forms brought about by technological advancements, as is the nature of all living human languages. Finally, samples of research outputs that reflect the different representations of Filipino, specifically at the orthographic level, will be shown in order to demonstrate how Filipino is used in the intellectual discourse, for it is hoped that this paper serve as guide in the use of Filipino in imparting pieces of instruction in the context of Philippine education.