Luchi Cruz-Valdez

Luisita “Luchi” Cruz-Valdez (also spelled as Luchi Cruz-Valdes) (born December 27, 1965) is a Filipino broadcast journalist formerly affiliated with the GMA News and Public Affairs and the ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs. She is currently the head of the news and public affairs department of TV5.

Life and career

Valdez earned her degree in Broadcast Communication at the University of the Philippines (UP), and became a radio and television reporter and producer. She is married to Lito Valdez, an IT marketing manager, and has three children.

Valdez joined the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a field reporter when it set up a Manila bureau for the 1986 Snap Presidential Election. After her ABC stint, Valdez was hired by Cheche Lazaro when ABS-CBN reopened after president Corazon Aquino was sworn into position.

For 10 years, she was a co-host of The Probe Team with Lazaro, founder and producer of the program, and also Valdez's professor in UP. She proceeded to become part of the GMA News and Public Affairs for three years before accepting the offer of rival network ABS-CBN to become its vice president for news production and current affairs in 2001.

Soon after leaving her post in GMA 7,^[1] the network filed cases of breach of contract and injunction against Valdez, which prevented her from working in ABS-CBN from December 28, 2001 to August 20, 2002. In July 2008, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court judge Tita Marilyn Villordon dismissed the cases and ordered GMA Network to pay its former employee in damages equivalent to the salary that Valdez should have earned during her eight-month “forced” vacation.

Also in 2008, Valdez was placed under preventive suspension pending the outcome of an internal matter, which ABS-CBN Corporate Communications head Bong Osorio described as “not merely a petty personal difference or simple administrative concern.”

In November of the same year, Valdez filed her resignation. In 2008, she joined TV5 as its News and Public Affairs head.

Filmography

Television

Radio

Recognitions

• Titus Brandsma Award for Excellence in Journalism, Catholic Mass Media Awards
• Broadcaster of the Year (2001), Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas
• Three silver and three bronze medals for Best Documentary, New York Film and Television Festival

References