Date Problem

I'm using pgsql with php, and my query below will retrieve employee's
monthly sales total,

"select sum(salesTotal) from ocf where employeeNo='0123' AND orderDate like
'%$month $year %'" // i put % infront to ignore day, and % at the back to
ignore the time (because i'm using timestamp with timezone), then i shall
get particular month's records.

$month = Feb
$year = 2002

But i cant retrieve the data, if i take out the $year, it works...but i
need the year to identify the records.

it works when i do a direct sql query to the pgsql through pg-admin, the
query are like this,
select grand_total,ocf_no,date from ocf where date like '2002-01%' order by
date;

i really confused with the date format......

Anybody got any solution or better idea, pls reply! THANK YOU

Regards,

pauL