BUSINESSWORLD welcomes today economist Bernardo M. Villegas to its lineup of distinguished columnists. Mr. Villegas is a visiting professor of IESE Business School in Barcelona, professor at the University of Asia and the Pacific and research director at the Center for Research and Communication, Manila. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University (1963) and was a CPA board topnotcher. He obtained Bachelor’s degrees in Commerce and the Humanities (both summa cum laude) from De La Salle University. At Harvard, at the age of 21, he was one of the youngest teaching fellows in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is currently a member of the boards of directors or advisory boards of national and multinational firms like Benguet Corp., Alaska Corp., PHINMA Property Holdings Corp. and AES, and is a management development and strategic planning consultant for several leading firms operating in the Philippines and Asia-Pacific. He was a member of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Philippine Constitution. His special fields of study are development economics, social economics, business economics and strategic management. (Read “Learning from and about China”)