Chin Peng’s son attends father’s funeral

After days of secrecy surrounding his children, Chin Peng's son Ong Boo Kok made an appearance at the Wat That Thong temple in Bangkok this morning to bid farewell to a man he had barely seen as a child.

Family spokesman Chang Yuen said Ong had arrived early and was in the main area of the temple.

Ong, a lawyer by profession, had been conspicuously absent during the week-long wake but had sent a large wreath earlier in the week. A note on it said it was also from his sister.

Chin Peng, the former secretary-general of the Communist Party of Malaya, had spent years apart from his children, battling the Japanese and British armies, and later the Malayan armed forces following Independence in 1957.

In a farewell note published as a booklet entitled "In Everlasting Memory, Dare to Struggle, Dare to Sacrifice", Chin Peng expressed his regrets about missing his childrens' growing years, saying he came into their adult lives as a stranger.

"Ever since I joined the CPM and became its secretary-general, I have given both my spiritual and physical self in the service of the cause and the party.

"It is of immense comfort to me that both my children are willing to take care of me, a father who could not give them love, warmth and protection ever since their birth.

"I could only return my love to them after I had relinquished my political and public duties, ironically at a time when I had no more life to give them as a father," Chin Peng wrote in his note.

Chin Peng died at 6.20am at the Bangkok's Bumrungrad International Hospital on September 16, after a long battle with cancer.