I found a script that updated php to 5.5, however it's only enabling me to run it as a CGI script, if I want to run PHP an Apache module, it's still only 5.3. How can I upgrade the Apache version?
httpd package is from official OS vendor repository and not builded and provided by Parallels. So, if you need, you can upgrade it with usual OS package manager methods.
PHP Panda could certainly be used in this context, both the cgi/fcgi and dso module are available in the install. I believe there was one thread in the atomic forums about using it in a DSO context via the SCL system.