Luchi Cruz-Valdez, Unmasking that ABS-CBN’s Special Assignment

Manila, Philippines - “Media has been getting a lot of negative
publicity lately,” says Luchi Cruz-Valdez, during the press conference
for the launching of Bandila sometime last year. On June 23, 2006, as
Ayn Veronica de Jesus of The Manila Times reported, Cruz-Valdez added
that many viewers had begun to turn away from watching the news because
most items focus on political bickering, economic slump and national
degradation. “We were feeding on that depression. We felt the time was
right to do something,” she said.


Luchi Cruz-Valdez has been around in journalism for a couple of
decades. She was known to be a part of GMA’s Probe Team before, but she
left in 2001 for ABS-CBN after being offered a higher position in the
company’s current affairs.


There’s not much information in cyberspace about this journalist, Luchi
Cruz-Valdez. Once you google her name, almost all results that appear
are links to her segment in the defunct Special Assignment when she
interviewed the Ang Dating Daan (The Old Path) sect leader, Eliseo
Soriano. This is the preacher Luchi Cruz-Valdez tried to destroy.


Special Assignment was a news feature show in ABS-CBN, hosted by Luchi
Cruz-Valdez. It didn’t stay around long as the show suffered from poor
rating. From the very title of the show, there’s an implication that
featured news in there were assigned by some veiled taskmaster(s). The
title is suggestive of a sinister ploy or order, the reason why it has
to be called an assignment.


Cruz-Valdez is skilled in manipulating information to make herself
appear favorable to those she is protecting or siding with. She has the
skills in distorting data or doing some fractional approach. This means
she simply picks up some parts of the whole thing and delivers it to
the public viewers in a much skewed package.


The proof of these claims, she delivered personally when she was
interviewed by an ABS-CBN correspondent Tessa Mauricio last September
20, 2007 posted in ABS-CBN Interactive. Cruz-Valdez personally claimed
that they (ABS-CBN) were terribly affected when the rival station GMA
came up with “Walang kinikilingan, walang pinuprotekatahan...” (Siding
no one, protecting no one...) in their news flagship.


Obviously, she is aware that the company she’s working with has major
business links with the Lopez’s clan like Meralco, Manila North
Tollways Corporation, and other major companies. With the rival GMA’s
news slogan, she said it is an attack to them as an implication that
ABS-CBN news’ delivery is prone to biases for protecting the company’s
interest.


Could this mean that ABS-CBN and Cruz-Valdez have stumbled upon a
win/win strategy, by working together, as the lady journalist can do
hack writing to protect the company’s affiliates?


She was working at the company for four years then before she hinted
with admittance that they may be guilty of such, and that is why she
had to call for staff and system overhaul. Obviously she was one of the
main consenters, if not promoters, of disinformation in the company she
is working with, for being the head of its current affairs team.


In the same interview with Mauricio, Luchi stated that “We wanted to be
number 1… we want to keep the lead.” She had expressed that “we intend
to grow the business outside the Philippines; we want to be a major
regional source of news and information.”


Perhaps this could be one of the reasons that plummeted ABS-CBN’s true
news credibility down to questionable proportions, when they compete at
all costs for the sake of rank. There is suggestion that regardless of
the nature of information they have gathered, when they do deliver,
they make it intriguing enough for the viewers, resorting even to lies.
The more they do this, the more viewers they attract, and the more they
secure profits for the company.


In considering fair journalism, truth shall always be the commodity,
not sensationalizing a certain issue. However, there’s a risk in the
rating for being too honest to the public viewer – that there is
nothing sensational in the news they are about to watch. Intrigue is
juicier than the honest taste of truth. That appears so in the
philosophy of Cruz-Valdez.


Intrigue is an all time enticer of interest to the public viewer,
especially in this depressing period of the country’s economy. If
intrigue will arouse the interest of the viewers; ratings will surely
soar, regardless of whether the material to view in public is factual
or simply fabricated lies to mar a certain personality.


Now, declaring that media has been getting a lot of negative publicity
lately, could the answer be in some media personality like Luchi
Cruz-Valdez herself who is working not because of truth but because of
the interest of the company’s ranking status?


Luchi Cruz-Valdez is a 20-year journalist who happens to believe in
pornographic comics about the Ang Dating Daan sect leader, Eliseo
Soriano. This comics was being discreetly scattered in public by
Soriano’s spineless enemies especially the Iglesia ni Cristo, the
church group that this preacher had exposed for many false beliefs
including their belief of discrediting Jesus Christ as God but only a
human. The obscene reading materials were obviously a ploy to destroy
Soriano, popularly known as Bro. Eli.


These pornographic comics that contained lies of the supposed private
life of Soriano, has no reported publishing house responsible for the
printing or even just an author’s name in it. Using her defunct news
program Special Assignment, Luchi Cruz-Valdez promoted the pornographic
materials in the public viewer, rather than Soriano as he is.


“We intend to grow the business…” Luchi stated. Obviously, it’s all
about business. Put a known public figure before the viewer, spice it
up with the sensationalized issue that’s not even factual, make him
felonious or controversial, and you will surely get a high-soaring
rating. “The ratings are major, major factor,” Luchi added. Of course,
the rating is a major factor for the show to run successfully. This is
how this industry works.


Soriano is one of the known public figures who are very interesting to
discuss as this can generate income for media industry. His popularity
had reached international proportions. Naturally, fame-hungry mediocre
personalities may ride along such popularity.


When you google this journalist’s name, the results that arise are not
to her honest efforts in media work. They are the ones she did with her
diabolical segment for the Ang Dating Daan leader. This is where her
manipulative journalism became so evident to the public viewers. Luchi
Cruz-Valdez didn’t know she was dealing with a very large group of
consumers capable of bringing her company down. Just with one
announcement, ABS-CBN could go down the drain if the Ang Dating Daan
leader says “cut.” However, righteous that the man is, Bro. Eli plays
it fair and square. He didn’t influence the consumer decisions of his
members.


This might also be the segment where Luchi gathered public knowledge
about her threatening presence in journalism. Scathing Soriano in
national TV might be her biggest break for a wider audience from the
long period of hibernating in the industry without making it big.


ABS-CBN might look at her as a respected public figure for the few
awards she had gathered. This may also be a reason why the company
trusted her that much. If that is the case, the thing is that this TV
journalist mistakenly pounded on a public figure whose awards of merit
in public service and ennoblement certainly towers over many times her
diminutive awards. And yet, all she did was work on fabricated comics’
lies.


If awards and recognition are to indicate credibility, Soriano is
obviously much credible than she is. Soriano’s commodity is truth and
his interest is salvation. The most recent award he just received was
credited to his international religious program, Ang Dating Daan, from
Gawad Amerika Awards. He has a long list of awards as listed in the
encyclopedia since he started broadcasting more than two decades ago.


Next time Luchi Cruz-Valdez will approach anyone of you, will you let her do her “Special Assignment” about you?