Her son Andrew Chong, 29, said his mother had been hospitalised since Thursday last week and succumbed to complications and breathing difficulties at Prince Court Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur yesterday morning.He expected her to pull through but she fell into a coma after a few days before passing away.
Even after her retirement from SMG in January 2012 and return to the company on contract until December 2013, Yap had been diligently penning her column Plain Speaking that appears in StarBiz on Mondays. Business editor Jagdev Singh Sidhu said Yap, who had been his boss, was attentive to their needs as employees and was always accommodating.
“We had so many good moments during our reporting days and our late editor, PY Chin, would pair us up for some of the most gruelling assignments.Assistant business news editor Daljit Dhesi said Yap was one of his mentors and a dear friend.Sharing some of her memories with Yap, business editor Hanim Adnan said: “I shared an apartment with her for almost two months when we did our fellowship at Washington DC many years ago. I was with Bernama then and she was with The Star.