Born on 22 January 1936, Ong was the second of five children from a middle-class Singaporean family. His English-educated father felt that the Chinese language was important if one wanted to become successful in business at the time and thus sent all of his children to Chinese-medium schools. Ong graduated with distinctions from The Chinese High School (now the High School Section of Hwa Chong Institution) in 1955. Having received a Chinese-language education, Ong saw little opportunity for advancing his studies in the University of Malaya, as English was the university's language medium.

In 1956, with the help of his father's friends, Ong ventured abroad. Those years were to shape both his beliefs and passions. Ong studied architecture at the University of Adelaide along with his childhood sweetheart and future spouse, Ling Siew May. Both Ong and Ling met each other during a Christmas party while they were still studying in secondary school.

 

Ong made his debut in politics in 1972. He was elected as MP for Kim Keat constituency, which marked the beginning of his 21 years in parliament. Between 1975 and 1985, Ong held the Labour, Communications and Culture portfolios. He also served as chairman of the People's Action Party (PAP) from 1981 to 1993 and was secretary-general of NTUC from 1983 to 1993. Between 1985 and 1993, Ong was appointed deputy prime minister. He resigned as MP in 1993 to become Singapore's fifth president on 1 September 1993.

 

As secretary-general of NTUC, Ong was well liked by the common workers and was regarded as a man with genuine interest in their lives. His success in convincing workers to accept a 15-percentage-point cut in their employers' Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions during the 1985 economic downturn was an example of his popularity. One of his greatest contributions to Singapore was pushing through the building of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system, which has transformed not only the way people travel but also land-use patterns in Singapore.

 

Ong was diagnosed with cancer of the lymphatic system in 1992, a year prior to his election into presidency. He had developed low-grade lymphoma, an abnormal growth of cells in the lymphatic system. In spite of this condition, he started his term with zest and enthusiasm. He had a relapse in 1998 but persevered in working out a white paper outlining the president's role in protecting the reserves.During his presidency in 1993, Ong was tangled in a dispute over the access of information regarding Singapore's financial reserves. The government said it would take 56-man-years to produce a dollar-and-cents value of the immovable assets. Ong discussed this with the accountant general and the auditor general and eventually conceded that the government only had to declare all of its properties, a list which took a few months to produce. Even then, the list was not complete; it took the government a total of three years to produce the information that Ong requested.

 

In an interview with Asiaweek six months after stepping down from presidency, Ong indicated that he had asked for this audit based on the principle that as an elected president, he was bound to protect the national reserves, and the only way of doing so would be to know what reserves the government owned.

In 1999, just a month before his term was complete, his wife of 36 years passed away, after a two-and-a-half year battle with cancer. Three years later, Ong himself departed at the age of 66 on 8 February 2002 in his Dalvey Estate home, leaving behind two sons. NTUC renamed the Singapore Institute of Labour Studies in honour of him; it is now known as the Ong Teng Cheong Institute of Labour Studies.

 

Adapted from: http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_161__2008-11-24.html?utm_expid=85360850-6.qNOOYF40RhKK6gXsQEaAJA.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com.sg%2F