one must have a style definition with a POINT layer when rendering text in php mapscript (that's all I tested). Interestingly, if the layer is an annotation, the style can be missing.
Anyway, gdb reports:
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
#0 0x002258f2 in msAddLabel (map=0x9626228, layerindex=0, classindex=0,
shapeindex=155762096, tileindex=-1, point=0x96e9b80, labelpath=0x0,
string=0x96e9f80 "67", featuresize=-1, label=0xbfc4b7c4) at maplabel.c:156
156 if(msGetMarkerSize(&map->symbolset, classPtr->styles[0], &w, &h, layerPtr->scalefactor) != MS_SUCCESS)