By Genalyn Kabiling  President Duterte has taken “full responsibility” for ordering the swift procurement of medical supplies in the early days of the government’s battle against the coronavirus outbreak. In his televised public address late Monday night, the President admitted he ordered Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to hasten the purchase of supplies needed for the coronavirus response regardless of the cost. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte holds a meeting with members of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) at the Malago Clubhouse in Malacañang on May 25, 2020. (ACE MORANDANTE / PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN) Duterte explained he was "boxed in a corner" as the country was battling to contain the spread of the disease. "I would listen to Secretary Duque. But I gave him the instruction and I admit it in public now, it’s being... Sabi ko sa kanya (I told him), 'Do everything you can.' Sabi niya (He said), 'There’s so many proposition.' 'I do not care. If it’s not cheap, if it is expensive, go – just go ahead and do something about it kasi ipit na tayo dito (because we're caught here).' And those were the early days. I remember ‘yung 'ipit akong (when we were caught) ...' I was boxed in a corner," he said in his televised public address late Monday. "I want the Filipino nation to know that I take full responsibility, that my order to him was to act quickly," he added. Duterte recalled that it did not matter to him how the funds for the medical supplies would be sourced. "I don't care where you get it, steal it and I remember saying it. I do not care whether you go and steal, borrow, or kill a person to get what needs to be done," he added. Sen. Panfilo Lacson had questioned the government's supposedly over-priced purchase of medical supplies in a Senate hearing. Lacson claimed the health supplies obtained by the government were more expensive compared to those bought by the private sector. In the same meeting, the President directed the National Bureau of Investigation to look “very carefully” into the allegedly overpriced testing kits of a local supplier. “We will act accordingly,” he added. Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography vowed to look deeper into the alleged overpriced purchase of COVID-19-related medical supplies, equipment and packages. (With a report from Mario B. Casayuran)