On the Sanisoft blog today, there's a quick tutorial demonstrating how to create a multilingual application with the CakePHP framework:

There are basic two ways to creating a multilingual app in traditional PHP [...] CakePHP V1.2 is the framework which allows you to take the quantum leap of using gettext like functionality with minimum of hassles and at the same time address the common problems which a PHP programmer faces while creating multilingual apps.

They give an example of a simple translation of a sentence (including working with .po files). They show how to integrate the example string, create the .po file with the translation and configure the language to pull the correct phrasing to display to the page.