Getting SQL query Syntax error or access violation while running raw SQL in yii2

am trying to creating a search function to be able to search for products and also filter the result by relevance but i got Syntax error after the query. below is the error i got too

 sql error
    SQLSTATE[42000]: Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near 'mens', 'winter', 'jacket'%',6,0) + if (title LIKE '%'mens'%',5,0) + if (title LI' at line 5
The SQL being executed was: SELECT p.product_id,p.title,p.price,p.unit_sold,
p.profile_img,p.store_name,p.item_number,
(
(-- Title score
if (title LIKE '%'mens', 'winter', 'jacket'%',6,0) + if (title LIKE '%'mens'%',5,0) + if (title LIKE '%'winter'%',5,0) + if (title LIKE '%'jacket'%',5,0)
)+
(-- description
if (description LIKE '%'mens', 'winter', 'jacket'%',5,0) + if (description LIKE '%'mens'%',4,0) + if (description LIKE '%'winter'%',4,0) + if (description LIKE '%'jacket'%',4,0)
)

) as relevance
FROM products p
WHERE p.is_active = '1'
HAVING relevance > 0
ORDER BY relevance DESC,p.unit_sold DESC
LIMIT 10

and the search function

function search($q){
            if (mb_strlen(trim($q))===0){
                // no need for empty search
                return false; 
            }
            $query = $this->limitChars(trim($q));

            // Weighing scores
            $scoreFullTitle = 6;
            $scoreTitleKeyword = 5;
            $scoreFullDescription = 5;
            $scoreDescriptionKeyword = 4;

            $keywords = $this->filterSearchKeys($query);
            $escQuery = $this->escape($keywords); 
            $titleSQL = array();
            $descSQL = array();

            /** Matching full occurences **/
            if (count($keywords) > 1){
                $titleSQL[] = "if (title LIKE '%".$escQuery."%',{$scoreFullTitle},0)";
                $descSQL[] = "if (description LIKE '%".$escQuery."%',{$scoreFullDescription},0)";

            /** Matching Keywords **/
            foreach($keywords as $key){
                $titleSQL[] = "if (title LIKE '%".Yii::$app->db->quoteValue($key)."%',{$scoreTitleKeyword},0)";
                $descSQL[] = "if (description LIKE '%".Yii::$app->db->quoteValue($key)."%',{$scoreDescriptionKeyword},0)";
            }

            //add 0 is query string is empty to avoid error
            if (empty($titleSQL)){
                $titleSQL[] = 0;
            }
            if (empty($descSQL)){
                $descSQL[] = 0;
            }
            $sql = "SELECT p.product_id,p.title,p.price,p.unit_sold,
                    p.profile_img,p.store_name,p.item_number,
                    (
                        (-- Title score
                        ".implode(" + ", $titleSQL)."
                        )+
                        (-- description
                        ".implode(" + ", $descSQL)." 
                        )

                    ) as relevance
                    FROM products p
                    WHERE p.is_active = '1'
                    HAVING relevance > 0
                    ORDER BY relevance DESC,p.unit_sold DESC
                    LIMIT 10";
            $results = Yii::$app->db->createCommand($sql)->queryAll();
            if (!$results){
                return false;
            }
            return $results;
        }

I'm also using escape() method to escape the query string in other to avoid sql injection but am not so convince this is the best practice as what the escape method does is adding single quote around the string which in turn will not even return any match in the table, I also try to use mysqli_escape_string() but can't get it work either, so i want to know what's the best practice in Yii2 to escape query string and avoid sql injection attack.

function escape($values)
        {
                $values = (array)$values;
                $escaped = array();
                foreach($values as $value) {
                        if(!is_scalar($value)) {
                                throw new CException('One of the values passed to values() is not a scalar.');
                        }
                        $escaped[] = Yii::$app->db->quoteValue($value);
                }
                return implode(', ', $escaped);
        }