Although, any decent framework should take care of most of those issues. It wouldn't for instance, be using the mysql functions at all, or something like md5 for hashing passwords, or not escaping user data by default (three common issues I can think of off the top of my head..)

Not saying PHP is secure by any means, but it can be implemented securely - it just isn't very often.

That said, if there is an argument to be made for PHP, i'm afraid to say, I don't think the linked article does a good job of making it. While I think its suggestion that PHP has evolved beyond some of the common criticisms against it might have merit, it doesn't address that the bulk of PHP code in the wild most definitely has not.