My setup:
# grep php /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so
AddType x-httpd-php .php
AddHandler php5-script .php
# grep PHP /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
PHPIniDir /etc/
# grep open_tag /etc/php.ini
; short_open_tag
short_open_tag = On
# /etc/init.d/httpd start
Starting httpd: [Tue Dec 04 03:26:29 2012] [warn] module php5_module is already loaded, skipping
httpd: apr_sockaddr_info_get() failed for holdsworth
httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.0.1 for ServerName
[ OK ]
# cat /var/log/httpd/error_log
[Tue Dec 04 03:26:37 2012] [notice] SELinux policy enabled; httpd running as context unconfined_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0
[Tue Dec 04 03:26:37 2012] [notice] suEXEC mechanism enabled (wrapper: /usr/sbin/suexec)
[Tue Dec 04 03:26:37 2012] [warn] module php5_module is already loaded, skipping
[Tue Dec 04 03:26:45 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Tue Dec 04 03:26:45 2012] [notice] Digest: done
[Tue Dec 04 03:26:53 2012] [warn] ./mod_dnssd.c: No services found to register
[Tue Dec 04 03:26:53 2012] [notice] Apache/2.2.15 (Unix) DAV/2 PHP/5.3.3 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Tue Dec 04 03:28:35 2012] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
access_log is empty. When I open index.php, it shows its content.
[root@holdsworth steve]# ls -lah /var/www/html/php/index.php
-rwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 1.7K Oct 31 18:38 /var/www/html/php/index.php