The correct way to handle vim syntax is not to litter all of your files with
vim tags (I don't like seeing this in SM proper, either.. )

The correct way:

make a directory in your home dir called .vim

Place in it a file named filetype.vim that contains the following:

" my filetype file
if exists("did_load_filetyes")
finish
endif
augroup filetypedetect
au! BufRead,BufNewFile *.tpl setfiletype php
augroup END


And boom! tpl files play like php files.
and you didn't have to add vim tags all over (which might annoy people that don't use vim..
I am convinced that there are people like that out there somewhere.. :-P)