Thanks Igor and Scott for the great tips,
Since I was previously following Scott's instructions I decided to try his last tip and changed the $PATH to: export PATH=/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin:/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/bin:$PATH
Now when I run phpinfo() in TM I get the right PHP from MAMP: PhpMate r11069 running PHP 5.2.6 (cli) (/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/bin/php)
note: the strange thing is that when I run phpinfo() from TM, my MAMP server was not running, is it ok?
The echo $PATH now returns: /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin:/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin
The which -a php returns: /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/bin/php /usr/bin/php