The Philippines, recognized today as one of the two remaining countries that do not allow absolute divorce, once had an absolute divorce legislation, Act No. 2710, which was in force from 1917 until its repeal in 1950, a fact unknown to many Filipinos. This article, however, focuses on the reinvention of marriage and divorce from 1898 to 1917. It contextualizes this development within the transition from Spanish to US colonial rule since the military occupation on 13 August 1898, and the evolution of the Philippine legal system as a mixed legal system. The Marriage Law of 1899, Gen. Order 68, was one of the most important laws created at the time that instituted secular/civil marriage, but it had one glaring problem – the law did not provide anything on divorce. Historical literature on US imperial rule suggests a nuanced view on policymaking that accommodated existing local conditions of their colonies. In a similar light, through an examination of two case decisions, this article shows how the Supreme Court reinvented the divorce policy to incorporate new (American) and to accommodate existing (Spanish) legal characteristics, a divorce that was ecclesiastical in design but secular in jurisdiction.