Make MacPorts PHP 7.3 run on OSX Mojave - php

Question

I am struggling with linking the newly installed PHP version on macOS Mojave (10.14.6)
I've installed PHP 7.3 via MacPorts (I need that exact version right now, I might update it later). Installation went alright, no errors.
When I run php -v it gives me
PHP 7.1.33 (cli) (built: Jan 26 2020 22:52:32) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
which, I suppose, is the version shipped with the OS.
My .bash_profile looks like this
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/sbin:/opt/bin
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:"$PATH"
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:"$PATH"
PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:"$PATH"
export PATH
export PATH=${PATH}:/Applications/Visual\ Studio\ Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" # This loads nvm bash_completion
When I run php73 -v it logs
PHP 7.3.33 (cli) (built: Feb 16 2023 20:14:16) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.3.33, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
MacPorts has installed the PHP 7.3 into /opt/local/bin.
So obviously, the php version in use by the OS doesn't know about PHP 7.3
Oh, and using homebrew is not really an option. I've just lost hours trying it to install php 8.2 and it failed with one lib or another, constantly claiming that my XCode command line tools are outdated (duh! – and I am not upgrading those as it would require updating the OS to the latest version which would in turn strain my MBP even further).
Any help is greatly appreciated.