PHP.ini overriding/not allowing set_ini or set_include_path directives

Question

I'm not exactly sure why this is happening. I'm running MAMP on my local machine. And I decided to install PEAR locally. So I edited the PHP.ini file and uncommented the include_path directive. Now for some reason none of my ini_set or set_include path directives work:

// trying to different methods
ini_set( 'include_path', ini_get( 'include_path' ) . PATH_SEPARATOR . BASE_PATH . "Zend/library/" );
set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . BASE_PATH . "Zend/library/" );

Here's my php.ini directive:

include_path = ".:/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/lib/php:/usr/local/PEAR"

If I comment that out then my code works. Any thoughts?