You’ll find it much easier to manage your data if you use CActiveRecord. Spend a bit more time with the guide before giving up on it. The advantage is that once the model class is set up, persisting data in your controller becomes very easy. You also avoid the risk of making mistakes or introducing inconsistencies into your SQL code. This will be especially important if you update your table schema, which will give you additional points of failure with your setup.
Keep all of your validation rules and data access / persistence in one place if you want to be able to keep your application maintainable.