Download from curlftpfs mounted drive in PHP

Question

I am trying to allow users to download files from FTP server mounted using CurlFtpfs on Cent OS 7.9.

My mounting configuration is as following :

curlftpfs#user:password@server/ebook /var/ebook/books fuse allow_other,uid=webuser,gid=psaserv,umask=0000 0 0

The webuser is the same one how owns httpd folder where the webiste file remains

as for the download code is

<?php
$filelocation='/var/ebbok/x.pptx';
$filename = basename($filelocation); 
  if (file_exists($filelocation)) {
    header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
    header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.$filename); 
    header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
    header('Expires: 0');
    header("Content-Type: application/force-download"); 
    header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
    header('Pragma: public');
    header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($filelocation));
    ob_clean();
    flush();
    readfile($filelocation);
    exit;
  }
?>

I made sure the x.pptx file exists and is in the folder, also working with SSH I can see the files and even manipulated them.

However, the file_exists function always returns false and I cannot access the folder or files in it in read nor write mode.

I have a similar setup on another server but using SMB and java Spring and that one working correctly.

I cannot use SMB on this server due to the fact that both servers are on 2 sperate networks, and I believe FTP is better in this situation