MySQL Querying Issue using CodeIgniter

MySQL Querying Issue using CodeIgniter

So I was able to find the root cause of my earlier problem.
Turns out it was the querying that is the problem. Well, not on my side,
at least not that I think so. This problem has been bugging me for many
hours now. Unfortunately, it something I don't know how to fix.
Please check this code:
public function get_calendar_content($y,$m){
$query = $this->db->query("SELECT * from events WHERE event_date LIKE
'$y-$m%'");
$content=array();
foreach($query->result() as $q){
$content[substr($q->event_date,8,2)]=$q->event_details;
}
return $content;
}
This function ignores whatever I supply for the $m, or the month. It only
cares about the year. Plus, when I tried selecting all data from the
events table instead of having a where clause, it still only returns the
entries or data from the events table which is is dated in the month of
August.
When I tried writing the where clause explicitly to event_date LIKE
'2013-09', it wouldn't return any data at all. I don't understand what's
going on. For some unknown reason, the function would only return data
from August. What could my problem be?