philippine nat ' l lang . content - length : 786 a local newspaper recently printed a letter to the editor that read , in part , as follows : " tagalog is not a language but the second-most commonly spoken dialect in the philippines ( next to cebuano ) out of more than 50 dialects . the national language is filipino , as required by the philippine congress in 1989 . " does anyone out there know what filipino is , or where i might find some information on it and the events in the philippine congress in 1989 ? i 'd like to use this topic as a starting-off point for a class discussion about dialect vs . language , and prescriptivism , but i need to know more . if you have some information , please reply to me directly . thanks . - - christine brisson rutgers university cbrisson @ zodiac . rutgers . edu