Cruz-Valdes joined the Associated Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a field reporter when it set up a Manila bureau for the 1986 Snap Presidential Election.
After her ABC stint, Cruz-Valdes was hired by Cheche Lazaro when ABS-CBN reopened after president Corazon Aquino was sworn into position.
Soon after leaving her post in GMA 7,[2] the network filed cases of breach of contract and injunction against Cruz-Valdes, 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 Cruz-Valdes should have earned during her eight-month "forced" vacation.
Also in 2008, Cruz-Valdes 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."