An official remembrance for the late Robert Arrigo was held in Parliament on Tuesday, as the former MP's wife, Marina, and their two sons, Andrew and Alan, were in attendance.

MPs in Parliament bid farewell to their colleague.

Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said that this is the second time in two years that a PN MP had succumbed to a terrible illness, referring to the late Frederick Azzopardi.

"Robert gave this country years of service, not only as a local council member, mayor, MP and PN Deputy Leader, but also in the tourist and sports sectors which he loved so much," Grech said.

"There were a lot of adjectives describing Robert in the past few days, but the best one in my opinion is 'altruistic'. He always put others ahead of him, be it in his district or the people he met in hospital. This value of his was very apparent."

Glancing at the Arrigo family in Parliament, Grech praised the back bone of the family, Marina and praised Andrew for choosing to follow in his father's footsteps.

Grech then proceeded to quote Arrigo in the message he sent him when his father had died.

"To Alan and Adrian, this is the last message Robert sent me when I buried my father. When you lose a father, you loose a reference point, you become a real adult. I lost mine 30 years ago. Alan and Adrian you are now the reference point to your father's legacy."

In the words of Arrigo said during his first speech in Parliament, Grech said that "the decisions we take here are going to effect everyone. Good decisions bring about good times for the people, we must take every opportunity we can to improve the lives of the people, no matter the difficulty in doing so."

Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne described Arrigo as an honest and credible politician who always spoke his words without beating around the bush. "He praised the good decisions taken by the government and expressed his concerns on those he did not agree on."

In Malta, politicians tend to fall into stereotypes of criticising the opposing side at all costs, Arrigo was not like that, Fearne explained.

"Everyone described him as a gentleman not because they could not come up with another adjective, but because that's what he truly was. I met him in 2013 and his words always weighed heavy in this House, because he was always credible and always put the people of this country ahead of everything else," Fearne said.

Looking at the late wife and sons of Arrigo, Fearne praised them for being the strength which gave (Robert) Arrigo the motivation to help all those people in his unique ways. "He would come forward to help people who did not even vote for his party, that's the integrity Arrigo had."