With cPanel, you do not need to recompile the whole easyapache to get your PHP or suEXEC to be run, you may easily get the PHP work with the rebuild_phpconf script to update the php.conf file.
To see a list of all options and arguments for the script, you may type the following from the command line,
/usr/local/cpanel/bin/rebuild_phpconf –help
If you wish to use PHP 5, CGI handler and enable suEXEC, you might type as,
/usr/local/cpanel/bin/rebuild_phpconf 5 cgi cgi 1
If you wish to use PHP 5, suPHP and enable suEXEC, you might type as
/usr/local/cpanel/bin/rebuild_phpconf 5 suphp suphp 1
The available PHP handler is as cgi, dso, none, fcgi and suphp.